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THE  BEACON  BIOGRAPHIES 

EDITED    BY 

M.  A.  DEWOLFE  HOWE 


SAMUEL  FINLEY  BREESE  MORSE 

BY 

JOHN  TROWBRIDGE 


SAMUEL  FINLEY  BREESE  MORSE 


JOHN   TROWBRIDGE 


BOSTON 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 
MDCCCCI 


Copyright, 
By  Small)  Maynard  fcf  Company 

(Incorporated") 


Entered  at  Stationers9  Hall 


Press  of 
George  H.  Ellis,  Boston 


The  photogravure  used  as  a  frontispiece 
to  this  volume  is  from  an  engraving,  "by 
W.  6r.  Jaclcman,  of  a  photograph  ~by  Brady, 
taken  when  Morse  was  forty-five  years  old. 
It  is  reproduced  by  permission  of  D.  Ap- 
pleton  &  Co.  The  present  engraving  is  by 
John  Andrew  &  Son,  of  Boston. 


PEEFACE. 

I  invite  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  the 
record  of  a  man  who  spent  the  first  half  of 
his  life  as  an  artist  and  the  last  half  as  an 
electrician.  The  vast  storehouse  of  Nature 
was  opened  to  him,  and  he  was  given  honours 
and  gold.  He  changed  the  world  more  than 
Ccesar  or  Napoleon.  He  took  away  the 
occupation  of  great  merchants  who  went 
down  to  the  sea  in  great  ships.  He  bound 
together  the  states  of  this  great  continent 
with  bands  of  iron.  While  an  artist,  no 
canvas  seemed  to  him  large  enough  upon 
which  to  express  his  ideas  ;  and,  as  an  elec- 
trician, he  was  given  the  whole  surface  of 
the  globe  whereon  to  inscribe  his  name.  Is 
there  not  food  for  thought  in  the  study  of 
this  life  f  The  historian  will  find  therein  a 
stronger  impulse  to  study  the  effect  of  science 
upon  human  affairs,  and  will  be  led  to 
regard  its  influence  more  important  and 
lasting,  perchance,  than  that  exerted  by  the 
greatest  military  hero.  The  electrician  will 


viii  PEEFACE 

wonder  why  a  man  who  had  not  fully  im- 
Mbed  even  the  electrical  knowledge  of  his 
time,  and  who  had  no  knowledge  of  mathe- 
matics, should  have  been  chosen  to  do  this 
thing.  The  psychologist  will  find  problems 
in  this  life  in  regard  to  the  assimilation  of 
ideas,  the  importance  of  suggestion,  the 
value  of  initiative,  and,  in  considering  these, 
may  perhaps  decide  whether  he  can  be 
called  a  genius.  The  student  of  economics 
can  find  in  the  story  of  telegraph  litigation 
a  picture  of  the  grasping  men  who  adopt  the 
principles  of  socialism  in  order  to  prey  on 
the  labors  of  an  inventor  under  the  pretence 
of  public  utility. 

J.   T. 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS,  October,  1901. 


CHRONOLOGY. 

1791 

April  27.  Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse 
was  born  at  Charlestown,  Massachusetts. 

1801 
>er.  Entered  Andover  Academy. 

1807 
September.  Entered  Yale  College. 

1811 

July  13.  Sailed  for  Europe  to  study 
painting. 

1813 

May.  Contributed  a  picture  of  the 
Dying  Hercules  to  the  Eoyal  Academy 
Exhibition,  London. 

1815 
August  21.  Returned  to  America. 

1817 

January.  Engaged  to  Miss  Lucretia  P. 
"Walker  of  Concord,  New  Hampshire. 
June.  Went  to  Washington  to  take  out 


x  CHEONOLOGY 

patents  on  a  flexible  piston  pump,  the 
invention  of  his  brothers  and  himself. 

1818 

October  1.  Married  Miss  Lucretia  P. 
Walker. 

1823 

August  1.  Took  out  a  caveat  for  a  ma- 
chine for  cutting  marble. 

1825 
February  8.  Death  of  his  wife. 

1826 

January  15.  Organised,  in  company  with 
others,  the  National  Academy  of  Design. 

1827 

May  3.  Delivered  president's  address  on 
the  first  anniversary  of  the  Academy  of 
Design. 

Winter.  Eenewed  his  early  interest  in 
experiments  in  electricity. 

1829 

November  8.  Sailed  for  Europe  to  per- 
fect himself  in  his  profession  as  an 
artist. 


CHBONOLOGY  xi 

1832 

October  1.  Eeturned  to  America  in  the 
packet  ship  Sully,  on  which  he  first 
thought  of  the  telegraph. 

1835 

Autumn.  Was  appointed  Professor  of  the 
Literature  of  the  Arts  of  Design  in  New 
York  City  University. 

1836 

January.  Exhibited  to  Professor  L.  D. 
Gale  models  of  his  electric  telegraph, 
including  a  relay. 

1837 

September  2.   Showed  his  apparatus  in 
successful  operation  to  Alfred  Vail. 
October  3.  Applied  for  a  caveat  on  the 
American  Electro-magnetic  Telegraph. 

1838 

January  6.  First  experiment  with  three 
miles  of   coiled  copper  wire  stretched 
around  a  room  of  the  factory  in  Speed- 
well, New  Jersey. 
April  7.  Applied  for  patent. 


xii  CHEONOLOGY 

1838  (continued) 

May  16.  Went  to  Europe  to  obtain 
foreign  patents. 

1839 

April  15.  Eeturned  to  America,  having 
failed  to  obtain  patents  in  England. 

1840 

May  24.  First  message  sent  over  the 
trial  line  between  Baltimore  and  Wash- 
ington. 

June  20.  Issue  of  the  first  patent  on  the 
American  Electro- magnetic  Telegraph 
to  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse. 

1843 

March  3.  Congress  appropriated  $30,000 
to  test  the  value  of  the  Morse  telegraph. 

1845 

August  6.  Sailed  for  Europe  to  introduce 
his  telegraph. 

1846 

April  11.  Eeissue  of  Morse's  patent. 
June.  Yale  College  conferred  the  degree 
of  LL.D. 


CHKONOLOGY  xiii 

1847 

Married  Miss  Sarah  E.  Griswold  of 
Poughkeepsie,  New  York. 

1848 

March  1.  The  Sultan  of  Turkey  recog- 
nised by  a  decoration  in  diamonds  the 
inventor.  This  was  the  first  recognition 
by  a  foreign  government. 
August  24.  Claim  of  Morse  as  the  orig- 
inal inventor  of  the  telegraph  brought 
into  the  courts. 

Decision  of  the  Supreme  bench  in  his 
favor. 

1855 

Great  gold  medal  of  Science  and  Art 
sent  by  Emperor  of  Austria. 

1856 

Order  of  the  Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour  conferred  by  the  Emperor  of 
France. 

June  5.  Sailed  for  Europe. 
October  2.  Engaged  on  experiments  with 
submarine  cable  between  Newfoundland 
and  Ireland. 


xiv  CHRONOLOGY 

1856  (continued) 

October  9.  Banquet    to    Mr.    Morse    in 
London. 

1858 

July  24.  Sailed  for  Europe. 
September  1.  Eeceived  testimonial  of  four 
hundred  thousand  francs  from  France, 
Austria,  Belgium,  Netherlands,  Pied- 
mont, Russia,  Holy  See,  Sweden,  Tus- 
cany, and  Turkey. 

1866 
June.  Last  visit  to  Europe. 

1868 

December  30.  Banquet  in  his  honour  in 
New  York. 

1871 

June  10.  Ceremonies  at  the  erection  of  a 
statue  to  Morse  in  Central  Park. 

1872 

April  2.    Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse 
died  at  Poughkeepsie,  New  York. 


SAMUEL  FINLEY  BREESE  MORSE. 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE. 
I. 

IT  is  said  that  Keats,  the  poet,  con- 
fessed that  he  had  never  felt  the  exhila- 
ration of  a  great  success.  The  lives  of 
most  men  are  like  the  scoring  in  a  musi- 
cal composition,  which  fills  in  the  pe- 
riods between  the  entrances  of  the  maes- 
tro :  well  done  it  may  be,  but  often 
uninteresting.  Samuel  Finley  Breese 
Morse  was  selected  by  the  Euler  of  the 
universe  to  give  to  the  world  a  method 
of  communication  of  thoughts  and  ideas 
which  was  destined  to  create  a  greater 
revolution  than  any  military  hero  has 
caused  among  nations.  Why  was  this 
man  selected?  Why  was  he  given  this 
great  success  —  a  success  which  must 
have  filled  his  soul  with  an  exaltation 
for  which  poets  have  longed  in  vain  ? 

It  surely  will  be  of  interest  even  to 
the  non-scientific  reader  to  study  briefly 
the  career  of  one  who  realised  Puck's 


2  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

boast  —  who  could  indeed  put  a  girdle 
around  the  earth  in  forty  minutes,  and 
who  seemed  to  be  an  incarnation  of  the 
Greek  god  whose  disciples  handed  on 
swiftly  the  torch  of  progress  as  they  ran. 
Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse  was  born 
in  Charlestown,  Massachusetts,  April  27, 
1791.  His  ancestor  on  the  father's  side 
came  from  Wiltshire,  England,  in  1635, 
and  settled  in  STewbury,  Massachusetts. 
His  descendants  were  of  the  typical 
stock  which  characterised  the  early  peo- 
ple of  New  England,  sturdy  —  most  of 
them  lived  beyond  their  eightieth  year 
—  and  religious.  The  father  of  the  in- 
ventor was  a  clergyman  of  high  stand- 
ing, a  graduate  of  Tale  College,  and 
once  a  tutor  there.  He  studied  theology 
under  Dr.  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  son  of 
the  great  Edwards,  and  was  settled  over 
the  First  Congregational  Church  in 
Charlestown,  April  30,  1789,  the  date 
of  Washington's  inauguration  in  New 
York  as  President  of  the  United  States. 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  3 

He  was  prominent  all  his  life  in  affairs 
connected  with  the  Congregational  be- 
lief, and  occupies  a  distinguished  place 
in  the  annals  of  this  sect  as  estab- 
lisher  of  the  religious  paper,  the  Pano- 
plistj  and  as  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
Congregational  strongholds  —  the  Theo- 
logical Seminary  at  Andover,  the  Amer- 
ican Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  the 
American  Bible  Society,  and  the  Ameri- 
can Tract  Society. 

He  is  sometimes  called  the  Father 
of  American  Geography,  having  pub- 
lished many  school-books  on  this  sub- 
ject. This  progenitor  also  had,  it  is 
said,  a  leaning  toward  invention.  He 
was  a  man  of  great  energy  and  persist- 
ence, two  of  the  essential  qualities  in 
a  successful  inventor ;  and,  in  marking 
these  qualities,  we  get  an  inkling  of  one 
of  the  causes  of  success  of  the  son.  It  is 
said  that  Daniel  Webster  once  spoke  of 
him  as  "  always  thinking,  always  writ- 
ing, always  talking,  always  acting." 


4  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

Out  of  the  loins  of  this  sturdy  Puritan 
caine  a  new  light  into  the  world,  which 
was  destined  by  the  quick  interchange 
of  ideas  to  modify  profoundly  New  Eng- 
land theology.  In  the  Eev.  Jedediah 
Morse  we  see  sturdy  qualities  which 
might  lead  to  success  in  any  of  the  pro- 
fessions ;  but  he  never,  apparently,  be- 
came strongly  possessed  with  an  idea. 
He  was  not  an  imaginative  man.  From 
whom,  then,  did  the  son  obtain  his  ar- 
tistic side  and  that  combination  of  the 
faculty  of  conceiving  forms  impalpable 
to  others,  with  the  qualities  which  made 
Dr.  Eliot  say  of  the  Eev.  Jedediah, 
"What  an  astonishing  impetus  that 
man  has ' J I  Let  us  see  what  manner  of 
woman  the  mother  was. 

She  was  of  Scotch  descent,  her 
grandfather,  Dr.  Finley,  being  of  Scotch 
parentage,  but  born  in  Ireland.  He  be- 
came president  of  Princeton  College,  and 
was  also  a  distinguished  Presbyterian 
clergyman.  It  was  said  that  she  pos- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  5 

sessed  a  judicial  mind,  which  was  in 
marked  contrast  to  the  sanguine  and  im- 
pulsive spirit  of  her  husband.  She  was 
evidently  a  feminine  balance  wheel, 
one  of  those  women  of  Scotch  descent 
whom  we  have  all  known, — a  woman 
with  business  qualities  judiciously  con- 
cealed by  attractive  feminine  traits. 
One  of  her  sons,  in  speaking  of  the  grave 
debates  at  the  house  of  his  father  over 
the  much-mooted  plan  of  the  Middle- 
sex Canal  —  a  project  which  strongly  ap- 
pealed to  the  sanguine  spirit  of  the  Eev. 
Jedediah  —  relates  this  commendation 
of  the  distinguished  engineer,  Loammi 
Baldwin  :  "Mrs.  Morse  was  present,  not 
merely  as  a  listener,  but  occasionally 
spoke ;  and  her  words  elicited  from 
Baldwin  the  remark  that  Madam's  con- 
versation and  cup  of  tea  removed  moun- 
tains in  the  way  of  making  the  canal. ?  ? 
The  pictures  we  get  of  this  good  mother 
—  of  eleven  children  —  is  that  of  a  wise 
provide?  and  economiser  of  a  preacher's 


6  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

sparse  living  in  those  days.  She  stands 
out  from  the  records,  a  Copley  portrait, 
with  a  shrewd,  motherly  face,  undoubt- 
edly of  Scotch  lineament,  set  off  by  a 
sober  snood  and  ample  sleeves.  A  por- 
trait of  her  by  her  distinguished  son 
represents  her  reading  by  candle-light. 
She  was  said  to  be  fond  of  literature, 
and  this  portrait  emphasises  this  love ; 
but  where  was  the  artistic  tempera- 
ment? 

Of  the  eleven  children  of  this  woman, 
only  three  survived  infancy.  These 
were  sons  who  were  good  citizens,  noted 
as  men  of  good  parts.  Sidney  Morse 
was  an  inventor,  and  the  author  of  a 
school  geography  which  had  a  great 
circulation,  and  which  many  of  us  re- 
member to  have  thumbed  in  our  youth. 
Through  these  brothers  of  Samuel  Finley 
Breese  Morse  we  see  a  strain  of  the  same 
qualities  which  distinguished  him,  and 
which  they  received  as  a  direct  inheri- 
tance from  the  father.  The  imaginative 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  7 

and  the  artistic  element  was  not  de- 
veloped in  any  of  them  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  subject  of  this  sketch.  The 
fates  seemed  to  be  propitious  and  to  be 
preparing  a  career  for  this  chosen  of 
men ;  for,  in  the  very  year  of  Morse's 
birth,  Galvani,  like  a  high  priest  ob- 
serving the  entrails  and  prognosticating 
the  future,  investigated  the  twitching 
of  a  frog's  leg  when  it  was  touched  with 
a  scalpel,  and  led  Volta  in  1800  to  in- 
vent the  battery  which  was  to  be  Morse's 
servant.  What  legend  in  classical  times 
is  more  laden  with  omens  in  regard  to 
the  birth  of  a  hero  ?  Here  is  what  lends 
an  uncommon  interest  to  our  study  of 
this  man.  Why  was  he  selected  to  hand 
on  the  torch  of  progress  —  a  man  in 
a  new  world,  untrained  in  science,  far 
from  the  great  intellectual  centres,  Lon- 
don, Berlin  and  Paris,  new  in  a  subject 
in  which  there  were  such  giants  as  Fara- 
day and  Gauss?  We  are  reminded  of 
singular  growths  in  the  plant  world. 


8  SAMUEL   F.  B.  MOESE 

A  seed  escaping  from  overpowering 
shade  and  falling  on  a  suitable  soil  can 
convert  a  desert  reef  into  an  island  of 
delight.  The  American  environment 
seems  to  have  been  especially  fitted  for 
the  reception  of  electrical  ideas.  There 
is  something  in  electricity  especially 
congenial  to  the  spirit  of  the  race. 

Dr.  Belknap  of  Boston,  writing  to 
Postmaster-general  Hazard,  said  :  "  Con- 
gratulate the  Monmouth  Judge  [Mr. 
Breese,  the  grandfather]  on  the  birth 
of  a  grandson.  Next  Sunday  he  is  to  be 
loaded  with  names,  not  quite  so  many  as 
the  Spanish  ambassador  who  signed  the 
treaty  of  peace  of  1783,  but  only  four  ! 
As  to  the  child,  I  saw  him  asleep,  so 
can  say  nothing  of  his  eye  or  his 
genius  peeping  through  it.  He  may 
have  the  sagacity  of  a  Jewish  rabbi  or 
the  profundity  of  a  Calvin  or  the  sub- 
limity of  a  Homer  for  aught  I  know. 
But  time  will  bring  forth  all  things." 

At  seven  years  of  age  Morse  attended 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  9 

a  school  at  Andover,  Massachusetts, 
preparatory  for  Phillips  Academy.  In 
this  latter  school  he  was  fitted  for  Yale 
College,  which  he  entered  in  his  fifteenth 
year.  When  a  student,  his  letters  to  his 
parents  indicate  an  interest  in  science, 
and  especially  in  electricity.  The  in- 
struction in  physical  science  in  those 
days  was  very  meagre.  Jeremiah  Day 
was  then  professor  of  natural  philosophy 
in  Yale  College.  The  learned  professor 
has  given  (with  evident  satisfaction)  this 
record  of  his  lectures  :  — 

"In  my  lectures  on  Natural  Philoso- 
phy the  subject  of  electricity  was  spe- 
cially illustrated  and  experimented  upon. 
Enfield's  work  was  the  text-book. 

"The  terms  of  the  twenty-first  propo- 
sition of  Book  Y.  of  'Enfield's  Philoso- 
phy 7  are  these  :  *  If  the  circuit  be  in- 
terrupted, the  fluid  will  become  visible, 
and  when  it  passes,  it  will  leave  an  im- 
pression upon  any  intermediate  body.' 

"I  lectured  upon  and  illustrated  the 


10  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
first  two  experiments  propounded  by  the 
twenty-first  proposition,  and  I  recollect 
the  fact  with  certainty  by  memoranda 
now  in  my  possession.  The  experiments 
referred  to  are  in  terms  as  follows  :  — 

"  'Experiment  1.  Let  the  fluid  pass 
through  a  chain  or  through  any  metallic 
bodies  placed  at  small  distances  from 
each  other,  the  fluid  in  a  dark  room  will 
be  visible  between  the  links  of  the  chain 
or  between  the  metallic  bodies.7 

"  i  Experiment  2.  If  the  circuit  be  in- 
terrupted by  several  folds  of  paper,  a 
perforation  will  be  made  through  it,  and 
each  of  the  leaves  will  be  protruded 
by  the  stroke  from  the  middle  to  the 
outward  leaves.7  77 

Writing  in  1867,  Morse  said:  "The 
fact  that  the  presence  of  electricity  can 
be  made  visible  in  any  desired  part  of 
the  circuit  was  the  crude  seed  which  took 
root  in  my  mind,  and  grew  into  form, 
and  ripened  into  the  invention  of  the 
telegraph.77 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE        11 

In  a  letter  home  February  27,  1809, 
he  writes  :  — 

"Mr.  Day's  lectures  are  very  interest- 
ing. They  are  upon  electricity.  He 
has  given  us  some  very  fine  experiments. 
The  whole  class,  taking  hold  of  hands, 
form  the  circuit  of  communication,  and 
we  all  received  the  shock  apparently  at 
the  same  moment.  I  never  took  an  elec- 
tric shock  before.  It  felt  as  if  some 
person  had  struck  me  a  slight  blow  across 
the  arms." 

It  is  probable  that  there  was  greater 
scientific  activity  at  that  time  in  Yale 
College  than  in  any  other  American  col- 
lege. Benjamin  Silliman  was  then  pro- 
fessor of  chemistry ;  and  the  brilliant 
researches  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy  with 
the  electric  battery  which  led  to  the  dis- 
covery of  the  metal  potassium,  .naturally 
attracted  the  attention  of  a  brother 
chemist  to  electricity. 

Professor  Silliman,  in  speaking  of 
Morse's  early  interest  in  that  subject, 


12         SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

said  :  "  S.  F.  B.  Morse  was  an  attendant 
on  my  lectures  in  the  years  1808,  1809, 
and  1810.  I  delivered  lectures  on  chem- 
istry and  galvanic  electricity.  The  bat- 
teries then  in  use  were  the  pile  of  Volta, 
the  battery  of  Cruikshank,  and  the 
Couronne  des  tosses,  well  known  to  the 
cultivators  of  that  science.  I  always  ex- 
hibited these  batteries  to  my  classes. 
They  were  dissected  before  them ;  and 
their  members  and  the  arrangement  of 
the  parts,  and  the  mode  of  exciting  them, 
were  always  shown.77 

At  the  same  time  lectures  were  given 
at  Harvard  College  on  electricity  by 
Professor  Frisbie.  These  lectures  were 
always  referred  to  with  great  enthusiasm 
by  those  who  heard  them,  and  Professor 
Frisbie  exists  still  as  a  great  traditionary 
teacher.  He  also,  doubtless,  had  modifi- 
cations of  the  Voltaic  pile,  Dr.  Hare's 
deflagrator,  which  was  simply  a  battery 
with  large  metallic  plates,  the  invention 
of  which  seems  a  small  matter  to  us  now, 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         13 

but  which  excited  great  interest  in  the 
infancy  of  the  subject.  All  the  appara- 
tus on  the  subject  of  electricity  in  those 
days  in  Harvard  College  could  be  con- 
tained in  a  small  cupboard,  if  we  except 
a  massive  electrical  machine,  ordered  for 
the  college  by  Benjamin  Franklin.  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  Morse  was 
fortunate  in  attending  Yale  College,  for 
there  was  no  one  in  Harvard  College  at 
that  time  in  physical  science  of  the 
weight  of  Benjamin  Silliman.  Morse 
evidently  got  all  there  was  to  be  had  at 
that  time  on  the  subject  of  electricity. 
He  acquired  a  smattering  of  chemistry, 
and  speaks  of  studying  optics,  dialing, 
and  Homer.  It  is  interesting  to  speculate 
upon  the  future  of  young  Morse  if  he  had 
not  been  thrown  at  a  formative  period 
into  an  academic  life  where  the  latest 
discoveries  in  electricity  were  commented 
upon  and  the  fundamental  experiments 
in  science  repeated. 
In  studying  Morse's  career  in  college 


14         SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

the  most  prominent  feature,  after  all,  is 
not  his  love  for  electricity  or  invention. 
If  he  had  never  invented  the  telegraph, 
I  doubt  whether  his  letters  home  on  the 
subject  of  electricity  would  have  been 
thought  significant.  The  heat  of  litiga- 
tion over  his  patents  in  after  years 
brought  them  to  light,  and  invested 
them  with  interest.  Many  a  boy  has 
written  from  his  school  fuller  accounts 
of  his  experiments  in  chemistry,  and 
has  ended  by  becoming  a  dry-goods 
merchant.  No,  Morse's  love  for  elec- 
tricity was  entirely  subordinate  to  his 
love  for  painting.  Perhaps,  like  Goethe, 
he  mistook  his  vocation,  and  longed  to 
excel  in  directions  which  were  really 
paths  of  greatest  resistance  for  him. 
This  striving  for  excellence  in  the  great 
art  of  painting  has  been  a  characteristic 
of  inventors  and  mechanicians.  I  re- 
member that  Alvan  Clark,  the  maker 
of  great  telescopes,  cut  short  his  ex- 
planation of  the  processes  by  which  he 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         15 

ground  and  tested  his  lenses,  in  order  to 
show  me  the  portraits  he  painted  and 
to  dwell  lovingly  upon  the  values  and 
the  chiaro-oscuro.  A  little  encourage- 
rn^nt,  an  imprimatur  from  the  consti- 
tuted critics  of  art,  would  have  changed 
his  career  from  a  discoverer  of  new 
worlds  to  a  painter  of  the  fleeting  ghosts 
of  men.  Our  thoughts,  too,  go  back  to 
the  great  Tuscan,  Leonardo  da  Yinci, 
who  was  a  renowned  painter,  and  who 
also  invented  the  wheelbarrow,  together 
with  many  other  devices.  He  too  was 
fortunate  in  his  environment. 

The  letters  from  Morse's  classmates 
dwell  upon  his  taste  for  drawing  and 
painting.  He  speaks  in  1809  of  em- 
ploying all  his  leisure  time  upon  paint- 
ing. He  took  orders  for  profiles  at  one 
dollar  a  head  and  for  miniatures  on 
ivory  at  five  dollars.  In  1810  he  writes 
to  his  parents  on  the  eve  of  graduation  : 

"I  am  now  released  from  college,  and 
am  attending  to  painting.  As  to  my 


16  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
choice  of  a  profession,  I  still  think  I 
was  made  for  a  painter,  and  would  be 
obliged  to  you  to  make  such  arrange- 
ments with  Mr.  Allston  for  my  studying 
with  him  as  you  shall  think  expedient. 
I  should  desire  to  study  with  him  during 
the  winter ;  and,  as  he  expects  to  return 
to  England  in  the  spring,  I  should  ad- 
mire to  be  able  to  go  with  him.  But 
of  this  we  will  talk  when  we  meet  at 
home." 

One  is  struck  by  the  fact  that  his 
parents  did  not  object  to  their  son  adopt- 
ing what  was  then  considered  a  vis- 
ionary profession.  The  Bev.  Jedediah 
Morse  was  a  practical  divine  —  a  man 
of  affairs  in  so  far  as  a  clergyman  can 
be ;  and  he  had  given  his  son,  at  con- 
siderable cost,  a  liberal  education,  to 
fit  him  for  the  learned  professions.  We 
hear,  however,  of  no  remonstrance  from 
the  father  or  mother.  His  mother  gives 
directions  in  regard  to  his  costume  at 
the  coming  Commencement,  and  his 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  17 
father  permits  him  to  be  one  of  the 
managers  at  the  Commencement  ball. 
The  winter  after  Morse's  graduation  was 
spent  in  Boston,  where  he  attended  a 
course  of  anatomical  and  surgical  lect- 
ures under  Dr.  Warren,  evidently  with 
the  intention  of  fitting  himself  for  the 
profession  of  an  artist.  He  also  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Washington  Allston, 
who  was  destined  to  influence  greatly 
the  artistic  epoch  of  his  life.  One  at 
the  present  day,  with  the  multiplication 
of  illustrated  journals  and  periodicals, 
the  great  increase  of  art  collections,  and 
the  opportunities  for  foreign  travel,  can- 
not realise  the  surroundings  of  an  artis- 
tic young  man  in  Boston  in  1810.  Even 
in  1850  I  remember  that  I  was  taken, 
while  a  small  boy,  into  a  room  in  the 
Boston  Athenseum  to  see  a  great  un- 
finished picture  by  Washington  Allston, 
Belshazzar' s  Feast.  This,  with  a  few 
other  pictures  by  Allston  and  Copley, 
were  all  that  a  boy  fond  of  art  could 


18         SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

see ;  and  it  was  considered  an  event  to 
be  taken  to  Boston,  up  Beacon  Street, 
into  the  modest  building  dignified  by 
the  name  of  "  Athenaeum. "  Steam  and 
the  telegraph  have  been  potent  ele- 
ments in  the  change  that  has  come  to 
us.  Washington  Allston  was  a  great 
name  to  conjure  by  in  those  days ;  and 
the  young  Morse,  aspirant  for  fame, 
evidently  was  stirred  to  the  depths  by 
his  intercourse  with  the  great  man. 
There  is  little  of  this  hero-worship 
to-day,  and  Morse's  invention  has  much 
to  do  with  the  absence  of  it.  His  in- 
vention, however,  probably  has  had  less 
effect  on  the  career  that  he  began  life 
with  than  on  any  other  field  of  human 
effort. 

July  13,  1811,  Morse  sailed  for  Eu- 
rope on  the  vessel  Lydia,  in  company 
with  Washington  Allston  and  his  wife. 
The  voyage  occupied  twenty-six  days. 
There  were  premonitions  of  the  War  of 
1812 ;  but  Americans  were  apparently 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         19 

well  received  in  England  and  subjected 
to  no  annoyances.  Benjamin  West  was 
then  at  the  height  of  his  reputation  5  and 
Morse,  the  young  aspirant  for  artistic 
fame,  was  introduced  to  him  by  Wash- 
ington Allston.  Truly,  a  distinguished 
audience  and  a  distinguished  introducer  ! 
West  was  then  in  his  seventy-fourth  year. 
He  had  become,  perhaps,  the  foremost 
painter  of  his  time  in  England.  A  man 
of  indefatigable  industry,  his  paintings 
numbered  more  than  six  hundred ;  and 
Morse's  letters  are  full  of  admiration  of 
his  countryman  and  of  desires  of  emula- 
tion. In  after  years  he  said  to  a  friend  : 
"I  called  upon  Mr.  West  at  his  house  in 
Newman  Street  one  morning ;  and,  in 
conformity  with  the  order  given  to  his 
servant  Eobert,  always  to  admit  Mr. 
Leslie  and  myself  even  if  he  was  engaged 
in  his  private  studies,  I  was  shown  into 
his  studio.  As  I  entered,  a  half-length 
portrait  of  George  III.  stood  before  me 
upon  an  easel,  and  Mr.  West  was  sitting 


20  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
with  his  back  toward  me,  copying  from 
it  upon  canvas.  My  name  having  been 
mentioned  to  him,  he  did  not  turn,  but, 
pointing  with  the  pencil  he  had  in  his 
hand  to  the  portrait  from  which  he  was 
copying,  he  said, — 

"'Do  you  see  that  picture,  Mr. 
Morse  f 7 

"  'Yes,  sir,7  I  said.  'I  perceive  it  is 
the  portrait  of  the  king.7 

"  '  Well,7  said  Mr.  West, '  the  king  was 
sitting  to  me  for  that  portrait  when  the 
box  containing  the  American  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  was  handed  to 
him.7 

"'Indeed,7  I  answered;  'and  what 
appeared  to  be  the  emotions  of  the  king  ? 
What  did  he  say  ! ' 

"'Well,  sir,7  said  Mr.  West,  'he 
made  a  reply  characteristic  of  the  good- 
ness of  his  heart,7  or  words  to  that  effect. 
'Well,  if  they  can  be  happier  under 
the  government  they  have  chosen  than 
under  mine,  I  shall  be  happy.7  77 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE        21 

The  art  life  of  Morse  in  London  seems 
to  have  filled  all  his  desires.  An  intimate 
friend  was  Leslie,  the  artist.  He  met 
Wilberforce,  Coleridge,  and  Bogers,  and 
was  in  constant  intercourse  with  Allston 
and  West.  He  says  in  a  letter  to  his 
parents,  September  20,  1812  :  "My  pas- 
sion for  my  art  is  so  firmly  rooted  that  I 
am  confident  no  human  power  could  de- 
stroy it.  The  more  I  study,  the  greater 
I  think  is  its  claim  to  the  appellation  of 
divine  j  and  I  never  shall  be  able  suf- 
ficiently to  show  my  gratitude  to  my 
parents  for  enabling  me  to  pursue  that 
profession,  without  which,  I  am  sure,  I 
should  be  miserable.7'  A  model  in  clay 
of  a  Dying  Hercules  was  highly  com- 
mended at  this  time  both  by  Allston 
and  West,  and  their  praise  excited  this 
artistic  exuberance  of  feeling. 

Electricity  in  later  life  was  destined 
to  supplant  art  and  to  pervade  his  whole 
being,  while  the  colours  dried  on  his 
palette  and  lost  their  bloom.  Surely 


22  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
this  man  seemed  bound  irrevocably  to 
art ;  and  there  was  something  extremely 
mysterious  in  the  influences  which  were 
destined  in  middle  life  to  give  him  an- 
other career,  totally  different  from  that 
which  he  entered  upon  in  enthusiastic 
youth.  During  the  four  or  five  years  of 
his  artist  apprenticeship  in  London  there 
is  not  an  inkling  of  a  turn  for  science. 
We  do  not  hear  of  any  visits  to  the  Koyal 
Institution,  where  Sir  Humphry  Davy 
had  made  his  brilliant  discoveries  by  the 
aid  of  the  electrical  current.  There  was 
no  effort  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
men  prominent  in  electrical  science. 
Art  engrossed  all  his  tastes  and  faculties. 
She  was  his  mistress,  whom  he  one  day 
was  destined  to  leave.  This  complete 
absence  of  interest  in  science  during  those 
years  in  London,  the  centre  of  science  in 
those  days,  is  remarkable. 

He  was  in  London  during  the  War  of 
1812  and  during  the  War  of  the  Allies, 
which  culminated  in  the  battle  of  Water- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  23 
loo.  His  letters  home  give  an  interesting 
picture  of  those  stirring  times.  He  re- 
marks in  1813  that  the  expenses  of  his  first 
year  were  two  hundred  pounds,  and  he 
hopes  that  the  same  sum  will  carry  him 
through  a  second.  He  was  obliged  to  deny 
himself  every  luxury.  His  breakfast  was 
bread  and  butter  and  two  cups  of  coffee  ; 
his  dinner,  one  kind  of  meat  with  po- 
tatoes —  warm  twice  a  week,  the  rest  of 
the  week  cold ;  his  tea,  bread  and  but- 
ter, with  two  cups  of  tea.  A  pound  at 
that  time  went  no  farther  than  a  dollar 
in  America.  His  painting  materials 
were  very  expensive.  England  was  at 
war  with  America,  and  there  were  no 
quick  steamship  lines  to  bring  beef  and 
breadstuffs  from  the  western  continent. 
London  was  almost  archaic  in  its  methods 
of  transportation.  A  curious  picture  of 
this  is  presented  in  a  note  of  invitation 
to  young  Morse  from  a  Mr.  2/achary 
Macaulay:  "Mr.  M.'s  house  is  five 
doors  beyond  the  Plough,  at  the  entrance 


24  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 
to  Clapham  Common.  A  coach  goes 
daily  to  Clapham  from  the  Ship  at  Char- 
ing Cross,  at  a  quarter-past  three ;  and 
several  leave  Grace  Church  Street  in  the 
City  every  day  at  four.  The  distance 
from  London  Bridge  to  Mr.  Macaulay's 
house  is  about  four  miles." 

The  method  of  transportation  in  the 
city  was  by  means  of  miserable  hackney 
coaches  with  straw  in  the  bottom  and 
by  cabs  painted  yellow,  with  drivers 
on  little  boxes  at  the  side.  These,  how- 
ever, were  soon  superseded  by  four- 
wheelers  and  the  hansom.  Still,  London 
was  then,  as  it  is  now,  the  centre  of  the 
civilised  world ;  and  Morse's  residence 
there  must  have  been  a  course  of  liberal 
education  and  a  great  stimulant  of  the 
faculties  of  observation.  He  saw  the 
entre*e  of  Louis  XVIII.  into  London  in 
1814,  with  his  splendid  band  of  music 
of  fifty  pieces,  his  carriage  drawn  by 
eight  Arabian  cream-coloured  horses, 
the  king  a  corpulent  little  man,  with 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOKSE        25 

round  face,  dark  eyes,  prominent  feat- 
ures, "  hands  extended  sometimes  as  if 
in  adoration  to  heaven,  at  others  as  if 
blessing  the  people."  He  saw  the  great 
Emperor  Alexander  and  Marshal  Blii- 
cher,  "a  veteran-looking  soldier,  a 
very  fine  head,  monstrous  moustaches." 
Meanwhile  he  was  making  progress  in 
his  art.  He  painted  a  picture  of  the 
Dying  Hercules  of  great  size,  which  was 
exhibited  in  the  Eoyal  Academy  at 
Somerset  House.  The  London  Globe, 
May  14,  1813,  has  this  notice:  "The 
great  feature  in  this  exhibition  is  that 
it  presents  several  works  of  very  high 
merit  by  artists  with  whose  perform- 
ances, and  even  with  whose  names,  we 
were  hitherto  unacquainted.  At  the 
head  of  this  class  are  Messrs.  Monro  and 
Morse."  A  plaster  model  of  this  figure 
was  sent  to  the  Society  of  Arts,  and 
received  a  gold  medal.  The  picture  re- 
ceived much  praise  ;  and  a  critic  in  the 
British  press,  May  4,  1813,  placed  it 


26         SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

among  the  nine  best  paintings  in  a  gal- 
lery which  contained  pictures  by  Turner, 
Northcote,  Lawrence,  and  Wilkie. 

The  first  years  of  enthusiasm  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  art  were  delightful.  He 
had  made  influential  friends,  he  was  at 
the  centre  of  the  universe,  and  the  times 
were  stirring.  As  the  term  of  his  resi- 
dence and  apprenticeship  drew  to  a 
close,  he  was  naturally  desirous  of  earn- 
ing something  ;  and  he  set  out  for  Bristol, 
where  he  had  been  led  to  think  he  might 
obtain  commissions.  His  experience 
there  is  significant;  for  he  received,  in  the 
old  slave  port  and  thoroughly  commer- 
cial town  of  the  west  of  England,  the 
first  dampening  of  his  artistic  enthusi- 
asm. This  discouragement,  followed  by 
others  when  he  returned  to  America,  had 
much  to  do  with  the  turning  of  his 
attention  to  invention.  He  had  received 
some  pressing  letters  from  a  Mr.  Visscher 
to  visit  Bristol  to  reap  a  promised  har- 
vest of  sitters.  This  quondam  friend  was 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  27 
reputed  to  be  worth  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds,  and  liked  to  play  the  role  of  a 
Maecenas  without  the  necessary  gesture 
of  putting  his  hand  in  his  pocket. 
Morse  had  with  him  some  picture  frames 
which  pleased  Visscher's  fancy,  and  the 
latter  desired  the  artist  to  paint  some 
pictures  to  fill  them.  Accordingly 
Morse  spent  three  months  time  in  execut- 
ing what  he  believed  was  a  commission. 
When  the  pictures  were  finished,  Yisscher 
was  pleased  with  them,  but  declined  to 
take  them,  saying  that  he  already  had 
more  pictures  than  he  knew  what  to  do 
with.  Not  a  single  commission  was  re- 
ceived in  Bristol.  Washington  Allston 
was  with  Morse  on  this  unsuccessful  trip. 
He  too  received  no  encouragement ;  and 
the  two  artists,  impoverished  in  purse 
and  spirit,  returned  to  London.  A  germ 
of  discontent  at  the  world's  treatment  of 
artists  must  have  been  implanted  at  that 
time  in  Morse's  breast.  It  was  destined 
to  grow  on  his  return  to  America,  and 


28  SAMUEL  P.  B.  MOESE 
nothing  short  of  the  possession  of  great 
genius  in  art  could  have  stifled  it.  The 
faculty  of  invention  was  stronger  than 
that  of  art,  and  it  was  lying  dormant. 
If  Washington  Allston  was  unsuccessful, 
what  hope  could  there  be  for  Morse? 
The  Fates  were  spinning  iron  cobwebs 
for  him,  bands  which  were  destined  in 
time  to  encircle  the  world,  and  to  hold 
treasures  such  as  he  did  not  dream  of  in 
his  wildest  flight  of  imagination.  He 
writes  thus  to  his  parents  in  the  spring, 
before  his  return  to  America  :  — 

"  I  live  on  as  plain  food,  and  as  little, 
as  is  for  my  health.  Less  and  plainer 
would  make  me  ill,  for  I  have  given  it 
a  fair  experiment.  As  for  clothes,  I 
have  been  decent,  and  that  is  all.  If 
I  visited  a  great  deal,  this  would  be  a 
heavy  expense ;  but  the  less  I  go  out,  the 
less  need  I  care  for  clothes,  except  for 
cleanliness.  My  only  heavy  expenses 
are  colours,  canvas,  frames,  etc.  ;  and 
these  are  heavy. " 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  29 
I  have  sometimes  thought  that  history 
could  be  written  on  a  new  plan.  In- 
stead of  dwelling  upon  the  doings  of  the 
puppets  of  the  time  during  which  young 
Morse  spent  his  apprenticeship  in  Lon- 
don—  Bliicher,  the  Czar,  Napoleon  —  it 
might  be  well  to  pick  out  the  men  who 
were  destined  to  affect  permanently  the 
face  of  the  globe.  When  Napoleon  was 
the  principal  figure  on  the  world's  stage, 
about  to  end  a  strenuous  life,  which 
resulted  in  consolidating  Germany  and 
leading  to  the  subsequent  disaster  at 
Sedan,  the  inventor  of  the  telegraph, 
which  was  destined  to  bind  together  the 
remote  States  of  California  and  Massa- 
chusetts in  one  great  confederacy  of 
civilisation,  was  unknown  in  London. 
There  too  was  young  Faraday,  whose 
researches  on  electricity  were  destined  to 
light  the  cities  of  the  world  and  revolu- 
tionise methods  of  travel  ;  and  greater 
factors  in  changing  the  face  of  the  world 
were  there  also,  James  "Watt  and  Bob- 


30  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
ert  Stevenson.  These  men,  in  this  new 
plan  of  writing  history,  were  the  real 
actors  behind  the  scenes.  The  others 
strutted  a  little  day,  and  caused  some 
stains  of  blood.  The  development  of 
the  world  is  due  to  science ;  and  this 
development,  properly  speaking,  traced 
throughout  its  economic  and  even  its 
spiritual  aspect,  should  be  the  true  func- 
tion of  history  rather  than  the  relation 
of  acts  of  prowess  and  schemes  of  futile 
diplomacy.  But  I  fear  such  histories 
would  find  few  readers  ;  for  Pope's  epi- 
gram, "The  proper  study  of  mankind 
is  man,77  seems  to  be  still  considered  an 
expression  of  wisdom. 

It  is  probable  that  the  unsettled  state 
of  the  continent  and  the  state  of  his 
finances  prevented  Morse  from  studying 
out  of  England.  He  apparently  did 
not  visit  Eome  or  Venice  j  and  there  is 
no  reference  to  any  pictures  save  those 
of  Benjamin  West,  Washington  Allston, 
and  others  of  the  English  school  of  por- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE        31 

trait  and  historical  painters.  Travel  at 
that  time  was  a  serious  matter,  and  there 
was  an  excuse  for  the  provincialism  of 
English  art.  Steam  has  had  its  influ- 
ence on  painting.  It  may  not  have  been 
a  beneficent  one,  but  it  has  been  potent. 

During  the  last  year  of  Morse's  resi- 
dence in  England,  1815,  Napoleon  had 
returned  from  Elba.  Louis  XVIII.  had 
again  fled  from  the  capital  —  doubtless 
with  chubby  hands  extended  to  heaven 
—  and  Bliicher  was  retwisting  that  heavy 
moustache.  On  June  18,  1815,  the  battle 
of  Waterloo  was  fought ;  and  the  news 
did  not  reach  London  for  two  days. 
Morse's  telegraph  would  have  sent  it  in 
a  few  seconds.  The  young  painter's  ac- 
count of  the  reception  of  the  news  of 
the  entrance  of  the  allied  armies  into 
Paris  is  interesting. 

"  As  I  passed  through  Hyde  Park  on 
my  way  to  Kensington  Grove,  I  observed 
great  crowds  had  gathered,  and  rumours 
were  rife  that  the  allied  armies  had  en- 


32  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
tered  Paris,  that  Napoleon  was  a  pris- 
oner, and  that  the  war  was  virtually  at 
an  end.  .  .  .  On  entering  the  drawing- 
room  at  Mr.  Wilberforce's,  I  found  the 
company,  consisting  of  Mr.  Thornton, 
Mr.  Macaulay,  Mr.  Grant,  the  father 
and  his  two  sons  Eobert  and  Charles,  and 
Eobert  Owen  of  Lanark,  in  quite  ex- 
cited conversation  respecting  the  ru- 
mours that  prevailed.  Mr.  Wilberforce 
expatiated  largely  on  the  prospects  of  a 
universal  peace  in  consequence  of  the 
probable  overthrow  of  Napoleon.  ...  I 
sat  near  a  window  which  looked  out  in 
the  direction  of  the  distant  park.  Pres- 
ently a  flash  and  a  distant  dull  report  of 
a  gun  attracted  my  attention,  but  was 
unnoticed  by  the  rest  of  the  company. 
Presently  another  flash  and  report  as- 
sured me  that  the  park  guns  were  firing, 
and  at  once  I  called  Mr.  "Wilberforce7  s 
attention  to  the  fact.  Eunning  to  the 
window,  he  threw  it  up  in  time  to  see 
the  next  flash  and  hear  the  next  report. 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  33 
Clasping  his  hands  in  silence,  with  the 
tears  rolling  down  his  cheeks,  he  stood 
for  a  few  moments  perfectly  absorbed  in 
thought,  and,  before  uttering  a  word, 
embraced  his  wife  and  daughter,  and 
shook  hands  with  every  one  in  the 
room." 

Beside  "Wilberforce  the  reformer,  stood 
at  that  moment  a  man  whose  invention 
was  destined  to  have  a  greater  influence 
on  the  abolition  of  slavery  than  the  voice 
of  even  the  great  English  champion.  It 
was  destined  to  revolutionise  the  conduct 
of  wars,  to  make  impossible  another 
secret  passage  of  the  Alps  by  a  Napoleon, 
and  to  render  nugatory  forced  marches 
over  wide  extent  of  country.  How 
much  it  was  destined  to  nip  in  the  bud 
future  military  heroes  we  can  best  judge 
by  considering  what  it  might  have  pre- 
vented in  the  career  of  Napoleon. 


II. 

AUGUST  21,  1815,  Morse  returned  to 
America  to  practise  his  profession.  He 
set  up  a  studio  in  Boston.  His  picture, 
The  Judgment  of  Jupiter,  was  on  ex- 
hibition, and,  being  the  production  of 
the  pupil  of  Allston  and  West,  attracted 
much  attention.  But  the  young  artist 
found  little  to  do.  His  picture  was  not 
bought,  and  he  had  no  orders  for  new 
ones.  The  Bristol  experience  seemed 
to  be  repeated,  and  the  inventive  spirit 
within  him  asserted  itself.  If  success 
was  denied  in  one  direction,  it  might  be 
obtained  in  another.  The  art  in  him 
was  destined  to  receive  severe  blows; 
but  what  a  future  was  to  be  given  to  the 
vanquished !  He  invented,  together 
with  his  brother,  Sidney  E.  Morse,  dur- 
ing the  winter  of  1816,  an  improvement 
in  a  pump  for  a  fire-engine.  A  patent 
was  secured,  and  the  inventors  had  great 
hopes  for  a  while.  In  a  notice  of  it  we 


SAMUEL  P.  B.  MOESE        35 

find  that  four  men  could  work  it  with 
ease  and  deliver  three  hundred  and  sixty 
gallons  in  one  minute.  Eli  Whitney, 
the  inventor  of  the  cotton-gin,  said  of  it : 
"  Having  examined  the  model  of  a  fire- 
engine  invented  by  Mr.  Morse,  with 
pistons  of  a  new  construction,  I  am  of 
opinion  that  an  engine  may  be  made 
on  that  principle  (being  more  simple 
and  much  less  expensive)  which  would 
have  a  preference  to  those  in  common 
use." 

For  several  years  Morse  endeavoured 
to  bring  his  invention  into  use,  and  had 
his  first  experience  in  this  arduous  and 
vexatious  work.  It  was  destined  to  be  a 
failure. 

During  the  autumn  of  1816  and  the 
winter  of  1816-17  he  became  an  itiner- 
ant artist,  and  painted  portraits  at  fif- 
teen dollars  a  head  in  several  towns  in 
New  Hampshire  and  Vermont.  At  Con- 
cord, New  Hampshire,  he  met  with  con- 
siderable success,  and  wrote  to  his  par- 


36  SAMUEL  P.  B.  MOESE 
ents  that  he  believed  that  he  could  make 
an  independent  fortune  in  a  few  years  if 
he  devoted  himself  exclusively  to  por- 
trait painting,  so  great  was  the  desire 
of  his  countrymen  to  have  their  portraits 
painted.  In  Concord  that  winter  he 
met  Miss  Lucretia  P.  Walker,  whom  he 
afterward  married.  Their  engagement, 
in  1817,  made  it  all  the  more  obligatory 
upon  him  to  make  a  success  in  his  art ; 
but  the  field  of  invention  seemed  the 
quicker  way  to  a  competence,  and  much 
of  his  time  was  taken  up  in  endeavour- 
ing to  interest  people  in  his  pump.  Men 
ran  to  fires  in  those  days  with  antiquated 
engines,  which  were  worked  by  hand 
racks ;  and  the  streams  of  water  which 
they  threw  were  ridiculously  inadequate. 
Morse's  pump  could  deliver  a  large 
stream,  and  he  had  great  hopes  that 
many  cities  and  towns  would  buy  his 
invention.  The  town  of  Concord,  New 
Hampshire,  bought  one;  and  the  New 
hire  Patriot  of  April  14,  1818, 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESB         37 

spoke  well  of  it.  But  other  towns  did 
not  follow  the  example  of  Concord  ;  and 
in  1818  he  writes  to  his  parents:  "The 
machine  business  (between  ourselves)  I 
am  heartily  sick  of.  It  yields  much 
vexation,  labour,  and  expense,  and  no 
profit.  Yet  I  will  not  abandon  it.  I 
will  do  as  well  as  I  can  with  it ;  but  I 
will  make  it  subservient  to  my  painting, 
as  I  am  sure  of  a  support,  and  even  in- 
dependence, if  I  pursue  it  diligently, 
and  I  am  sure  I  am  disposed  to  do  it." 
If  he  had  been  seized  with  the  idea  of  a 
telegraph  at  that  time,  the  idea  would 
have  been  vanquished  also  by  the  genius 
of  painting  j  for  the  time  was  not  ripe. 
Henry  had  not  begun  his  researches,  and 
even  the  exaltation  of  spirits  of  the  en- 
gagement to  an  attractive  woman  could 
not  hasten  the  appointed  time.  The 
man's  spirit  must  be  chastened  by  years 
of  trial.  Others  must  work  for  this  ap- 
pointed high  priest  of  electricity. 

While  the  affair  of  the  pump  was 


38  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 
pushed  by  his  brother,  Morse  set  out 
for  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  on  a 
painting  tour.  His  uncle,  Dr.  Finley, 
introduced  him  in  the  southern  city, 
sat  for  his  portrait,  and  thus  opened 
the  way  to  a  greater  success  than  had 
been  previously  obtained.  Many  por- 
traits were  painted  at  sixty  dollars  a 
head.  He  could  not  fill  his  orders,  and 
visions  of  a  happy  future  filled  his  let- 
ters to  the  young  woman  who  was  wait- 
ing for  him  at  the  North.  In  May, 
1818,  he  returned  to  Boston,  having 
painted  fifty-three  portraits  and  taken 
orders  for  nine  others  which  were  to  be 
completed.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year 
he  was  married,  and  set  out  on  a  bridal 
tour  with  horse  and  gig.  His  account 
of  this  tour  is  an  interesting  picture  of 
the  times  when  methods  of  communica- 
tion were  primitive.  The  roads  were 
bad,  and  so  were  the  taverns  at  the  end 
of  the  day7  s  j  ourney .  The  happy  couple 
reached  Amherst  after  a  jolting  trip, 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         39 

continued  their  journey  through  Wilton 
to  New  Ipswich,  and,  having  found  that 
there  were  many  cross-roads  on  the  way 
to  Northampton,  which  they  intended 
to  reach,  and  no  taverns,  they  re- 
turned with  a  worn-out  horse  to  Con- 
cord. Early  in  November  the  young 
married  couple  embarked  on  a  sailing 
vessel  for  Charleston,  to  work  out  the 
lode  previously  opened.  Morse  found 
that  several  other  artists,  attracted  by 
his  success,  had  set  up  their  easels  in 
that  city.  And  even  a  waiter  in  one  of 
the  hotels  had  discovered  that  he  too 
was  an  artist.  The  field,  however,  was 
not  entirely  worked  out ;  and  Morse 
was  soon  fully  occupied.  In  a  letter  to 
Washington  Allston,  full  of  high  spirits, 
he  says  that  he  is  painting  from  morn- 
ing to  night,  and  feels  that  in  a  few 
years,  at  the  rate  he  is  progressing,  he 
will  be  independent  of  public  patronage. 
He  states  that  he  feels  as  much  enthusi- 
asm as  ever  for  his  art,  and  loves  it  more 


40        SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

and  more.     He  asks  the  great  painter's 

opinion  on  the  following  point :  — 

"I  have  been  using  a  compound,  or 
rather  mixture,  in  flesh,  on  which  I 
wish  your  opinion.  Yellow  ochre  has 
heretofore  been  the  best  yellow  I  could 
use,  but  it  always  appeared  to  me  to 
want  brilliancy.  Chrome  yellow,  on 
the  contrary,  is  too  bright,  or  eggy ; 
but  these  two  I  have  mixed  half  and 
half,  and  find  it  excellent  flesh  yellow. 
I  find  this  mixture  also  excellent  in  the 
shadows  of  white  drapery  and  in  re- 
flected lights,  when  properly  tempered 
with  blue  and  red.  A  very  strong  tint 
of  this  yellow,  laid  on  boldly  in  a 
shadow,  gives  a  clearness  and  liquidness 
to  it  which  no  other  yellow  that  I 
have  used  can  give,  and  gives  a  warmth 
and  glow  to  the  picture,  without  being 
hot.  I  should  like  to  know  the  result 
of  your  experiment  with  it."  Here 
was  invention  in  the  art  of  colour. 
This  extract,  too,  shows  that  he  was 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  41 
working  hard  at  what  he  considered 
his  life's  work,  bending  all  his  thoughts 
toward  painting,  and  striving  for  excel- 
lence in  it.  His  interest  in  art  was  also 
shown  by  his  activity  in  establishing, 
with  others,  the  South  Carolina  Acad- 
emy of  Fine  Arts,  which,  however,  soon 
died  a  natural  death. 

In  the  winter  of  1821,  on  his  return  to 
the  North,  reaching  out  evidently  for 
greater  things,  he  made  studies  for  an 
immense  picture  of  the  House  of  Bepre- 
sentatives  at  Washington,  with  por- 
traits of  each  of  the  members.  He  ob- 
tained the  use  of  one  of  the  rooms  in  the 
Capitol,  and  often  spent  sixteen  hours 
a  day  on  his  work.  The  canvas  was 
eleven  feet  by  seven  and  a  half,  and 
there  were  eighty  portraits.  He  real- 
ised nothing  from  this  arduous  under- 
taking. When  the  picture  was  placed 
on  exhibition,  the  public  did  not  go 
to  see  it ;  and  it  was  finally  sold  to 
an  Englishman,  who  took  it  to  London. 


42  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOE8E 
It  afterward  was  sent  to  New  York, 
where  it  was  found  in  1847  by  a  friend 
of  the  artist,  nailed  against  a  board 
partition  in  the  third  story  of  a  down- 
town store,  covered  with  dirt  and  dust. 
It  became  finally  the  property  of  Daniel 
Huntington.  Washington  Allston  once 
said  of  it  to  Morse,  "It  is  a  magnificent 
picture. "  The  elder  painter  evidently 
had  a  love  for  his  pupil,  and  was  in- 
clined to  regard  him  more  highly  than 
the  world  did.  We  often  find  men  of 
genius  holding  their  critical  faculty  in 
abeyance  and  praising  without  stint 
men  whose  personality  pleases  them. 
Having  failed  in  his  ambitious  venture 
and  receiving  no  orders  for  great  his- 
torical or  allegorical  pictures,  Morse 
again  became  an  itinerant  artist,  this 
time  in  upper  New  Tork  State.  Again, 
with  failure  to  achieve  his  highest  ideals 
in  art,  his  mind  turned  to  invention, 
which  is  said  to  be  the  resort  of  all 
unsuccessful  Americans  at  some  period 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  43 
of  their  lives.  He  devised  a  machine 
this  time  for  cutting  marble  and  pro- 
ducing copies  of  works  of  sculpture. 
Again  his  hopes  ran  high,  and  he  wrote 
affectionate  letters  to  his  wife,  expressing 
the  earnest  desire  that  fortune  would 
enable  him  to  give  up  his  peripatetic 
life  in  search  of  sitters,  and  allow  him 
to  settle  down  in  peace  and  comfort 
with  his  family  about  him.  This  in- 
vention came  to  nothing.  It  was  said 
to  be  mechanically  successful,  but  the 
world  did  not  want  it.  While  Morse 
was  endeavouring  to  find  occupation  in 
Albany,  Joseph  Henry,  a  teacher  in 
an  academy  there,  was  occupied  in  re- 
searches which  were  destined  to  make 
his  name  famous,  and,  while  contribut- 
ing nothing  to  his  own  purse,  gave 
Morse  both  a  name  and  a  fortune. 

The  days  in  Albany  were  full  of  dis- 
couragement 5  and,  after  a  summer  spent 
there,  he  returned  to  IsTew  Haven  for  a 
brief  visit  to  his  family.  He  had  come 


44  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
to  the  conclusion  to  settle  in  New  York, 
and  make  the  struggle  of  his  life  in 
a  metropolis.  There  were  to  be  no 
more  back  districts,  no  more  itinerancy, 
for  him.  Like  hundreds  of  others,  he 
sought  a  great  city,  and,  like  hundreds 
of  others,  came  near  being  merged  in 
the  mass  and  finally  thrown  out  of  the 
maelstrom,  worn  and  stranded.  The 
pictures  presented  by  his  letters  to  his 
faithful  wife,  waiting  for  the  ship  to 
come  in  —  alas  !  she  was  destined  never 
to  see  it  —  are  pathetic.  He  obtained  a 
room  at  two  dollars  and  twenty-five  cents 
a  week,  and  hired  a  studio  on  Broadway, 
opposite  Trinity  churchyard.  He  wrote 
that  there  were  many  artists,  all  poor  and 
complaining.  New  York  seemed  given 
wholly  to  commerce.  Money-making 
then  was  the  chief  end  of  man.  He  was 
reduced  to  great  straits.  At  a  reception 
a  sneak  thief  stole  his  hat ;  and  he  was 
obliged  to  pay  four  dollars  for  a  new 
one,  which  broke  his  last  five  dollar  bill. 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  45 
He  had  been  five  weeks  in  New  York, 
his  board  bill  amounted  to  thirty-three 
dollars,  and  he  had  nothing  in  his  pocket. 
He  had  advertised  and  visited  and  hinted 
and  pleaded,  but  without  success.  The 
marble- cutting  machine,  too,  contributed 
nothing.  Life  seemed  as  hard  as  the 
stone  which  he  sought  to  fashion.  In 
despair  the  artist  clutched  at  a  prospect 
of  going  to  Mexico  as  an  attache"  of  a 
legation  which  was  in  contemplation. 
He  was  to  have  the  bitter  experience  of 
"waiting  on  princes, "  or  sitting  at  the 
politician's  door,  which  in  America 
amount  to  the  same  thing.  He  actually 
set  out  for  "Washington  to  join  the  com- 
mission, only  to  find  that  it  had  been 
abandoned  j  and  he  returned  to  his  fam- 
ily in  New  Haven.  There  was  nothing 
to  do  but  paint  portraits  j  and  he  spent 
the  summer  of  1824  in  Concord,  Ports- 
mouth, and  Portland,  returning  in  the 
autumn  to  New  York.  The  clouds  began 
to  lighten  that  winter.  He  had  made 


46  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 
many  friends,  who  were  exerting  them- 
selves in  his  behalf.  The  corporation 
of  the  city  gave  him  a  commission  to 
paint  General  Lafayette,  who  was  then 
on  a  visit  to  America.  The  price  would 
probably  be  seven  hundred  dollars,  per- 
haps a  thousand.  Among  the  competi- 
tors for  this  prize  were  Vanderlyn,  Sully, 
Peale,  Jarvis,  Waldo,  Inman,  Ingham, 
and  others.  In  his  letter  to  his  wife  he 
says:  — 

"  Events  are  not  under  our  own  con- 
trol. "When  I  consider  how  wonderfully 
things  are  working  for  the  promotion  of 
the  great  and  long-desired  event — that 
of  being  constantly  with  my  dear  family 
—  all  unpleasant  feelings  are  absorbed 
in  this  joyful  anticipation ;  and  I  look 
forward  to  the  spring  of  the  year  with 
delightful  prospects  of  seeing  my  dear 
family  permanently  settled  with  me  in 
our  own  hired  house  here.  There  are 
more  encouraging  prospects  than  I  can 
trust  to  paper  at  present,  which  must  be 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESB  47 
left  for  your  private  ear,  and  which  in 
magnitude  are  far  more  valuable  than 
any  encouragement  yet  made  known  to 
you.  Let  us  look  with  thankful  hearts 
to  the  Giver  of  all  these  blessings.77 

The  day  of  success,  however,  was  still 
far  distant ;  and  his  wife  was  destined 
never  to  see  it.  His  letters  describe  the 
sittings  of  Lafayette  :  — 

"The  general  is  very  agreeable.  He 
introduced  me  to  his  son,  saying  :  '  This 
is  Mr.  Morse,  the  painter.  He  has  come 
to  Washington  to  take  the  topography 
of  my  face.7  "  The  reflections  of  the  ar- 
tist while  he  painted  Lafayette  were  pro- 
found. He  was  before  the  man  who 
stood  for  freedom,  who  suffered  in  the 
dungeon  of  Olmutz,  who  gave  his  time 
and  fortune  to  the  cause  of  America  — 
the  friend  of  Washington  ! 

The  final  sitting  was  interrupted  by 
the  news  of  the  death  of  Mrs.  Morse,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-five.  This  was  the 
great  calamity  of  those  years  of  strug- 


48  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
gle,  and  for  a  time  the  artist  gave  him- 
self up  to  despondency.  She  had  been 
a  very  help  in  time  of  trouble,  and  all 
his  visions  of  success  had  her  in  them 
as  the  partaker.  The  letter  of  the  father 
of  Morse,  full  of  condolence  and  sympa- 
thy, illustrates  the  character  of  the  old 
divine.  It  was  as  tender  as  that  of  a 
woman  and,  withal,  full  of  hope.  This 
father  had  sacrificed  himself  for  his 
son,  giving  him  the  best  education  that 
America  then  afforded,  supporting  him 
in  Europe  out  of  the  scanty  income  of  a 
preacher  of  the  gospel,  entering  into  all 
his  hopes  and  aspirations,  and  sympa- 
thising with  him  in  adversity. 

The  Rev.  Jedediah  Morse  is  an  exem- 
plar, and  must  not  be  forgotten  when  we 
think  of  the  qualities  of  patient  indus- 
try, indomitable  will,  alertness  of  per- 
ception, and  Christian  character.  In 
the  cemetery  at  New  Haven  there  is  a 
long  epitaph  to  Lucretia  Pickering,  wife 
of  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse,  written  by  Pro- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  49 
fessor  Benjamin  Silliman.  She,  like  her 
husband,  evidently  had  many  qualities 
which  made  friends. 

After  the  death  of  his  wife,  Morse  re- 
sumed his  artistic  career  in  New  York. 
He  was  active  in  the  formation  of  the 
National  Academy  of  Design,  and  be- 
came its  president. 

The  history  of  the  academy  is  told  by 
Thomas  S.  Cummings,  late  professor  of 
the  arts  of  design  in  New  York  Uni- 
versity, in  his  Historic  Annals  of  the 
National  Academy  of  Design;  and  we 
find  therein  an  interesting  recital  of  the 
struggles  of  artists  to  obtain  a  proper 
recognition  of  their  noble  guild  and 
adequate  instruction  in  art.  In  this 
treatise,  too,  can  be  found  specimens  of 
Morse's  facility  with  the  pen.  It  con- 
tains his  address  to  the  students  at  the 
end  of  the  first  academic  season,  in  1826, 
and  his  discourse  on  "  Academies  of 
Art,"  delivered  in  the  chapel  of  Colum- 
bia College  in  1827.  These  addresses 


50  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOKSE 
are  fall  of  the  spirit  of  devotion  to  art, 
and  are  the  product  of  a  man  of  liberal 
training.  There  is  no  evidence  of  that 
narrowness  which  sometimes  is  notice- 
able in  the  utterances  of  inventors. 
During  four  years  after  his  wife's  death, 
from  1825  to  1829,  he  continued  his  life 
in  New  York,  meeting  with  considera- 
ble success.  It  was  said  that  his  studio 
was  crowded  with  works  in  progress, 
and  that  he  was  compelled  to  turn  away 
would-be  sitters.  In  1829  he  deter- 
mined to  visit  the  continent  of  Europe, 
where  he  had  never  been.  This  deter- 
mination shows  the  late  beginning  of 
art  education  in  America.  It  had  be- 
come essential  that  the  president  of  the 
National  Academy  of  Design  should 
study  in  Italy.  Accordingly,  eighteen 
years  after  his  first  visit  to  England 
he  set  sail  again  for  Liverpool,  taking 
several  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  com- 
missions for  copies  of  the  great  masters. 
None  of  these  commissions  exceeded 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         51 

five  hundred  dollars,  and  most  of  them 
were  not  over  one  hundred  dollars. 
Morse  was  then  thirty-eight  years  of 
age,  and  his  first  letters  were  full  of  the 
enthusiasm  of  youth.  They  show  powers 
of  observation  and  a  remarkable  tolera- 
tion in  one  brought  up  in  the  rigid 
school  of  New  England  theology.  He 
went  by  stage  from  Liverpool  to  Lon- 
don, and  it  is  interesting  to  notice  how 
little  the  salient  characteristics  of  the 
people  and  the  landscape  have  changed 
since  the  November  of  1829.  He  notes  : 
"The  spires  and  towers  of  some  ancient 
village  church  rose  out  of  the  leafless 
trees,  beautifully  simple  in  their  forms, 
and  sometimes  clothed  to  the  very  tops 
with  the  evergreen  ivy.  .  .  .  The  whole 
appearance  of  the  villages  was  neat  and 
venerable,  like  some  aged  matron,  who, 
with  all  her  wrinkles,  her  stooping  form, 
and  gray  locks,  preserves  the  dignity  of 
cleanliness  in  her  ancient  but  becoming 
costume." 


52         SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

In  London  he  met  his  old  friend, 
Leslie  the  artist ;  and  he  was  introduced 
to  the  literary  and  artistic  circles  of  the 
metropolis.  He  breakfasted  with  Sam- 
uel Bogers,  the  author  of  Pleasures  of 
Memory,  and  visited  Turner,  the  cele- 
brated painter.  Washington  Irving  was 
then  secretary  of  legation,  and  at  the 
beginning  of  his  fame.  Morse,  however, 
did  not  linger  long  in  London,  which  at 
that  time  of  the  year  was  enveloped  in 
fog  and  smoke.  On  November  22  he 
pursued  his  way  to  Paris.  The  Louvre 
was  the  first  place  he  visited,  and  the 
sensation  was  evidently  too  much  for 
words.  He  speaks  of  the  grand  gallery 
of  pictures,  the  long  hall,  "the  end  of 
which,  from  the  opposite  end,  is  scarcely 
visible,  but  is  lost  in  the  mist  of  dis- 
tance." In  Paris  he  saw  Lafayette, 
who  greeted  him  with  great  cordiality, 
and  invited  him  to  his  soiree,  where  he 
met  Benjamin  Constant,  "one  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  the  liberal  party 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  53 
in  France."  The  stay  in  Paris  was 
short ;  for  Borne  was  his  ultimate  des- 
tination, and  the  Louvre  was  to  be 
studied  on  his  return.  The  route  to 
Borne  was  through  Lyons,  Avignon, 
Marseilles,  and  along  the  Cornice  road 
to  Genoa,  then  to  Pisa,  to  Florence,  and 
to  the  Celestial  City.  He  began  to  work 
immediately  upon  a  copy  of  Baphael's 
School  of  Athens  in  the  Vatican,  and 
his  letters  are  full  of  the  great  cere- 
monies in  St.  Peter's.  He  saw  the  de- 
livery of  the  cardinals'  hats.  "The 
pope's  dress  was  a  plain  mitre  of  gold 
tissue,  a  rich  garment  of  gold  and  crim- 
son, embroidered,  a  splendid  clasp  of 
gold,  about  six  inches  long  by  four 
wide,  set  with  precious  stones,  upon  his 
breast.  He  is  very  decrepit,  limping  or 
tottering  along,  has  a  defect  in  one  eye, 
and  his  countenance  has  an  expression 
of  pain,  especially  as  the  new  cardinals 
approached  his  toe.  The  cardinals  fol- 
lowed the  pope,  two  and  two,  with  their 


54  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
train-bearers."  He  describes  the  pro- 
cession of  cardinals  and  the  ceremony 
of  kissing  the  toe  of  the  bronze  statue 
of  Saint  Peter's,  the  ceremonies  of  Palm 
Sunday,  Holy  Thursday,  and  the  other 
great  observances  of  the  Church  during 
Holy  Week.  The  letters  are  those  of 
a  man  who  could  have  excelled  with  his 
pen ;  and,  as  I  have  said,  they  breathe 
a  singular  toleration  for  the  observances 
of  a  church  which  was  especially  re- 
pugnant to  his  Puritan  ancestors.  Our 
future  electrician  was  not  a  narrow 
specialist :  he  could  take  broad  views ; 
and  he  was  therefore  a  companionable 
man  whose  society  was  sought.  He 
met  Horace  Yernet  the  great  painter. 
He  became  acquainted  with  Gibson  and 
Wyett  the  sculptors.  He  painted  the 
portrait  of  Thorwaldsen,  and  was  inti- 
mate with  Greenough,  the  American 
sculptor.  Fenimore  Cooper,  too,  seemed 
to  have  cherished  an  affection  for  him ; 
and  they  visited  many  places  of  interest 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         55 

together,  and  exchanged  philosophical 
views  on  the  strange  phases  of  life  they 
saw  and  the  habits  of  the  people  they 
encountered.  The  life  of  an  artist  com- 
pletely absorbed  Morse.  His  diaries  are 
full  of  notes  on  pictures  and  methods 
of  painting.  Of  a  portrait  of  one  of 
the  Colonna  family  by  Paul  Veronese, 
called  the  Green  Picture,  he  remarks : 
this  portrait  "  proves  that  harmony 
may  be  produced  in  one  colour :  cur- 
tain in  the  background,  hot  green,  mid- 
dle tint ;  sleeves  of  the  arms,  cool ; 
vest,  which  is  in  the  mass  of  light,  as 
well  as  the  lights  of  the  curtain,  warm  ; 
white  collar,  which  is  the  highest  light, 
cool ! !"  The  faculty  of  invention  was 
at  that  time  fully  occupied  with  chiaro- 
oscuro  and  colour  schemes.  He  observes 
in  another  picture  of  Paul  Veronese  that 
the  highest  light  was  cold  ;  the  mass  of 
light,  warm  ;  the  middle  tint,  cool ;  the 
shadow,  negative;  and  the  reflections, 
hot.  He  tested  this  theory  by  placing 


56  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
a  white  ball  in  a  box  lined  with  white. 
Balls  of  orange  or  of  blue,  so  placed, 
give  the  same  relative  results.  The 
high  light  of  the  ball  is  uniformly  cold 
in  comparison  with  the  local  colour  of 
the  ball.  He  observed  in  a  picture  by 
Eubens  that  it  had  a  foxy  tone,  and 
found  that  the  shadow,  instead  of 
being,  according  to  his  theory,  negative, 
was  hot. 

Allston  once  said  to  him,  "I  have 
painted  that  piece  of  drapery  of  every 
colour,  and  it  will  not  harmonise  with 
the  rest  of  the  picture. " 

Morse  replied:  " According  to  my 
theory,  it  must  be  warm.  Paint  it  flesh 
colour. " 

6 '  What  do  you  mean  by  your  theory  1 7  7 

On  hearing  Morse's  explanation,  Alls- 
ton  said  :  — 

"It  is  so,  it  is  in  nature/ 7  and  after- 
ward acknowledged  to  Morse,  "Your 
theory  has  saved  me  many  an  hour's 
labour." 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOBSE  57 
Other  men  have  invented  schemes  of 
colour.  They  have  not,  however,  been 
great  artists  ;  or,  at  least,  it  can  be  said 
that  great  painters  have  not  given  their 
schemes  of  colour  to  the  world.  Shall 
we,  then,  conclude  that  Morse  had  not  the 
making  of  a  great  artist  in  him  ?  We 
certainly  should  be  rash  to  reach  this 
conclusion  from  the  fact  of  his  theoris- 
ing on  chromatics.  But  we  believe  that 
there  are  other  indications  which  point 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  had  not  yet 
found  his  true  vocation.  Nevertheless, 
Allston  and  West  thought  highly  of  his 
efforts ;  and  Horatio  Greenough,  the 
sculptor,  writing  to  him  from  Florence 
in  1832,  said :  < '  Let  me  beg  of  you  to 
hang  on  to  the  conception  of  the  depart- 
ure and  return  of  Columbus.  You  are 
perfectly  qualified  to  do  honour  to  the 
country  in  such  works,  and  should  never 
give  up  the  plan.  Hang  on  like  Colum- 
bus himself.  You  could  make  the  first 
a  grand  picture  in  character  and  effect 


58  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
of  composition.  You  would  embody  in 
the  second  all  your  scheme  of  colour  and 
chiaro-oscuro.  These  subjects  are  yours, 
you  are  theirs.  Have  faith,  and  fear 
not."  A  critical  notice  of  Morse's  artis- 
tic career,  prepared  by  Daniel  Hunting- 
ton,  president  of  the  National  Academy 
of  Design,  is  contained  in  Prime's  Life 
of  Morse.  The  artist's  theories  of  colour 
are  dwelt  upon,  and  the  critic  concludes  : 
"  He  had  a  true  painter's  eye  ;  but  he  was 
hindered  from  reaching  the  fame  his 
genius  promised  as  a  painter  by  various 
distractions,  such  as  the  early  battles  of 
the  Academy  of  Design  in  its  struggle 
for  life,  domestic  afflictions,  and,  more 
than  all,  the  engrossing  cares  of  his  in- 
vention. ...  If  his  paintings,  in  the 
various  fields  of  history,  portrait,  and 
landscape,  could  be  brought  together,  it 
would  be  found  that  he  deserved  an  hon- 
oured place  among  the  foremost  Ameri- 
can artists." 
In  the  autumn  of  1831  Morse  left 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE        59 

Eome  and  went  to  Paris,  where  he 
occupied  himself  in  making  copies  of 
pictures  in  the  Louvre.  He  also  under- 
took a  large  picture  of  the  interior  of 
the  Louvre,  including  copies  of  the 
great  pictures  there.  This  attempt  is 
curiously  like  the  undertaking  of  the 
picture  of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives. 
Both  attempts  indicate  great  energy  and 
industry,  but  hardly  an  artistic  soul. 
His  life  in  Paris  was  brightened  by  the 
friendship  of  remarkable  men.  He  saw 
much  of  Lafayette,  he  received  affection- 
ate letters  from  Fenimore  Cooper,  who 
was  then  travelling  in  Germany,  and  he 
became  intimate  with  many  noted  people 
who  sympathised  with  the  Poles,  then 
struggling  for  freedom.  He  joined  a 
committee  which  was  organised  to  aid 
the  Polish  cause,  and  was  instrumental, 
with  others,  in  causing  the  liberation  of 
Dr.  S.  G.  Howe,  who  had  been  intrusted 
with  twenty  thousand  francs  for  the 
Poles,  and  had  been  thrown  into  prison 


60  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
in  Berlin.  Morse  also  became  ac- 
quainted with  Humboldt,  and  it  is  said 
that  the  two  had  long  and  congenial  talks 
together  in  their  strolls  through  the  gal- 
leries. 

After  three  years  of  residence  abroad 
Morse  left  England  for  his  native  land 
with  his  mind  enriched  by  foreign  travel 
and  intercourse  with  great  men.  He 
folly  intended  to  pursue  his  career  as  an 
artist,  coming  now  to  it  with  greater 
maturity  of  power  and  with  a  better 
acquaintance  of  the  old  masters.  He 
was  forty  years  of  age,  and  seemed  fixed 
in  the  career  which  he  had  chosen. 
There  are  few  examples  of  men  who, 
having  reached  this  age,  have  achieved 
renown  in  an  entirely  new  field  of  effort. 
While  he,  however,  was  working  in  his 
art,  completely  absorbed  apparently  by 
it,  other  men  were  getting  ready  his 
implements  for  his  new  craft.  Joseph 
Henry,  at  Albany,  was  making  experi- 
ments with  magnets  and  discovering 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  61 
the  conditions  which  were  essential  to 
Morse's  subsequent  invention. 


in. 

THE  idea  of  an  electro- magnetic  tele- 
graph, came  to  Morse  in  mid-ocean.  He 
was  a  passenger  on  the  packet  ship  Sully, 
Captain  Pell,  which  left  Havre  October 
1,  1832,  for  New  York.  Among  the 
passengers  was  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson,  of 
Boston,  who  afterward  disputed  Morse's 
claim  to  the  great  invention.  One  day 
at  the  dinner-table,  conversation  turned 
upon  recent  investigations  in  electricity ; 
and  Dr.  Jackson  seems  to  have  been  the 
principal  speaker.  He  laid  down  the 
laws  of  electro-magnetism  so  far  as  they 
were  known  at  the  time,  and  explained 
the  method  of  increasing  the  force  of  a 
magnet  by  passing  the  electric  current 
many  times  around  a  bar  of  soft  iron. 
Questions  arose  in  regard  to  the  velocity 
of  electricity  and  in  regard  to  the  dis- 
tance the  strange  influence  could  be 
transmitted.  The  speaker  said  that  elec- 
tricity was  transmitted  instantaneously, 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         63 

no  appreciable  time  having  been  observed 
by  Franklin  between  the  instant  of  clos- 
ing the  circuit  and  the  appearance  of 
the  electric  spark  at  a  distance. 

It  is  reported  that  Morse  then  said, 
"If  the  presence  of  electricity  can  be 
made  visible  in  any  part  of  the  circuit,  I 
see  no  reason  why  intelligence  may  not 
be  transmitted  instantaneously  by  elec- 
tricity. ' ?  Dr.  Jackson  afterward  claimed 
that  he  then  and  there  developed  a  plan 
for  accomplishing  this  great  end  which 
was  substantially  that  which  Morse  after- 
ward used.  Morse  persistently  refused 
to  give  Dr.  Jackson  any  credit  whatever 
for  the  suggestion.  Dr.  Jackson  was  a 
man  of  varied  information,  and  his 
friends  firmly  believed  that  his  fertile 
mind  was  capable  of  conceiving  of  the 
idea  of  an  electro-magnetic  telegraph. 
It  does  not  appear  that  he  had  a  mechan- 
ical turn  or  that  he  was  endowed  with 
great  persistence  in  carrying  his  brilliant 
ideas  to  a  practical  conclusion.  He  also 


G4  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
claimed  the  discovery  of  the  use  of  ether. 
Here,  too,  he  met  a  man  of  a  practical 
turn,  Morton,  who  tried  the  effect  of 
ether  on  himself.  In  a  recent  conversa- 
tion with  a  distinguished  physician,  a 
contemporary  of  Jackson,  I  asked  about 
the  merit  of  Jackson's  claim  to  the  dis- 
covery of  ether  ;  and  the  reply  was : 
"Many  of  us  —  students  of  medicine  at 
that  time  —  were  accustomed  to  sniff 
ether  and  experiment  on  its  benumbing 
and  soothing  qualities.  The  wonder  is 
that  none  of  us  thought  of  the  simple  ex- 
periment of  pricking  ourselves  with  a 
pin  while  under  the  temporary  influence 
of  ether. > '  The  successful  inventor  seems 
to  be  a  man  who,  having  conceived  or 
received  an  idea,  becomes  thoroughly 
possessed  by  it  and  proceeds  immediately 
to  make  models  and  try  experiments. 
We  shall  never  know  how  much  Dr. 
Jackson  suggested  to  Morse.  All  that  is 
certainly  known  is  this  :  he  was  a  man 
capable  of  suggesting  new  ideas.  In  the 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  65 
litigation  which  arose  in  subsequent  years 
the  conversations  on  the  packet  ship 
Sully  were  repeated  by  various  hearers, 
and  all  the  circumstances  connected  with 
the  birth  of  the  invention  were  sifted. 
Morse  submitted  notes  from  his  diary, 
showing  arrangement  of  dots,  lines,  and 
spaces,  which  could  be  used  as  an  alpha- 
bet. It  was  said,  also,  that  he  made  a 
drawing  of  a  printing  instrument,  prob- 
ably an  arrangement  by  means  of  which 
a  tape  could  be  drawn  automatically 
along  to  receive  dots  and  lines  from  a  rod 
of  iron  which  was  moved  by  an  electro- 
magnet. All  that  Morse  had  at  that 
time  was  evidently  the  strong  belief  that 
the  transmission  of  intelligence  by  elec- 
tricity could  be  accomplished  by  suitable 
mechanical  contrivances — this,  together 
with  a  scheme  for  an  alphabet.  Other 
men  had  had  a  similar  idea,  and  codes 
of  signals  had  already  been  devised. 
Morse's  ideas  at  that  time,  however, 
would  not  have  advanced  the  subject, 


66  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
for  he  did  not  know  then  of  the  re- 
searches of  Joseph  Henry  ;  and  without 
the  use  of  the  latter' s  intensifying  magnet 
and  quantity  magnet,  and  the  idea  of 
the  relay,  the  alphabet  was  only  a  code 
such  as  a  man  of  ordinary  powers  could 
have  conceived.  The  voyage  of  the 
Sully,  it  seems  to  me,  simply  marks  the 
epoch  when  the  idea  possessed  Morse's 
soul,  and  when  the  Yankee's  practical 
turn  for  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends 
was  aroused.  He  had  the  faculty  of 
seeing  the  value  of  corner  lots  when 
other  men  were  lost  in  contemplation  of 
the  surrounding  scenery. 

Let  us  consider,  however,  what  was  his 
scientific  training.  While  in  Yale  Col- 
lege, we  have  seen  that  he  attended  the 
lectures  of  Professors  Day  and  Silliman. 
I  have  said  that  little  was  known  of 
electricity  at  that  time,  and  the  knowl- 
edge he  gained  contributed  nothing  more 
than  an  idea  of  the  transmission  of  the 
mysterious  influence  along  wires  a  com- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  67 
paratively  short  distance.  While  he 
was  pursuing  his  art  in  New  York,  in 
1827,  he  attended  the  lectures  of  Pro- 
fessor James  Freeman  Dana  before  the 
New  York  Athenaeum,  and  saw  the 
experiment  of  making  a  piece  of  soft 
iron  magnetic  by  inserting  it  in  a  coil,  or 
helix,  of  wire,  the  ends  of  which  were 
connected  to  a  battery.  He  also  saw  a 
horse-shoe  electro-magnet,  and  probably 
witnessed  the  attraction  of  a  piece  of  soft 
iron  by  this  magnet.  The  manuscript 
copies  of  these  lectures  are  in  the  library 
of  Harvard  University,  and  it  is  aston- 
ishing how  much  the  fact  of  increasing 
the  magnetic  effect  by  increasing  the 
windings  of  wire  on  the  spools  of  the 
horse-shoe  magnet  is  dwelt  upon.  This 
fact  is  the  material,  indeed,  for  the  en- 
tire course  of  lectures.  Here  we  have 
the  entire  training  of  Morse  in  the  subject 
which  was  destined  to  turn  him  from 
the  art  he  had  so  assiduously  cultivated. 
In  the  subject  of  electricity  we  have  often 


68  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
seen  men  spring  suddenly  into  notice 
and  grasp  the  prizes  which  the  philoso- 
phers have  overlooked.  Edison  once 
said  to  me,  as  if  reflecting  upon  this  psy- 
chological problem,  ' c  You  are  too  much 
loaded  up  with  mathematics."  Morse 
certainly  did  not  carry  a  mathematical 
load,  and  electricity  then  was  not  the 
mathematical  science  it  is  to-day. 

During  the  litigation  over  Morse's 
patents  every  incident  which  occurred 
during  the  voyage  of  the  Sully  was  care- 
fully considered. 

Captain  Pell  said,  "  Before  the  vessel 
was  in  port,  Mr.  Morse  addressed  me 
in  these  words  :  l  Well,  Captain,  should 
you  hear  of  the  telegraph  one  of  these 
days  as  the  wonder  of  the  world,  remem- 
ber the  discovery  was  made  on  board 
the  good  ship  Sully. ' ' '  A  passenger,  Mr. 
Fisher,  counsellor-at-law  in  Philadel- 
phia, testified  to  hearing  Morse  describe 
his  alphabet  j  and  he  had  no  remem- 
brance of  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson's  sug- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  69 
gestions.  The  history  of  all  inventions 
has  a  certain  sameness.  The  times  are 
ripe,  the  steps  have  been  taken,  the  in- 
vention is  sure  to  come.  Some  one  man 
of  quick  practical  perception  takes  ad- 
vantage of  the  researches  of  others  :  his 
mind  is  not  absorbed  by  trains  of  thought 
suggested  by  scientific  investigation. 
The  history  of  the  invention  of  the 
telegraph  and  the  telephone  could  be 
presented  in  parallel  columns.  The  his- 
torian should  not  rely  overmuch  on  the 
testimony  of  bystanders  where  electricity 
is  concerned.  There  are  always  men 
who,  after  the  invention  is  made,  be- 
lieve they  were  capable  of  making  it. 
These  men  remember  some  suggestion 
which  they  have  given  the  inventor. 
Their  friends  and  possibly  their  wives 
state  their  conviction  that  the  invention 
was  due  to  the  suggestion  ;  and  this  con- 
viction grows  with  time,  and  soon  a 
claimant  comes  forward  —  a  product  of 
the  native  egotism  of  man  and  the  adula- 


70         SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESB 

tion  of  friends.  The  truth,  seems  to  be 
that  Morse  was  more  fully  possessed  with 
the  idea  of  the  practicability  of  an  elec- 
tro-magnetic telegraph  than  any  other 
man  at  that  time  in  America,  and  as 
soon  as  he  landed  in  New  York  he  set 
about  making  some  moulds  for  an  ar- 
rangement which  would  serve  to  inter- 
rupt an  electric  current  and  thus  trans- 
mit his  alphabet  consisting  of  dots  and 
lines. 

He  took  a  room  at  his  brother  Eich- 
ard's  house,  and  began  a  long  struggle 
with  poverty.  His  residence  abroad  had 
left  him  poor,  notwithstanding  the  com- 
missions he  had  executed.  He  had  three 
children,  and  it  was  necessary  for  him  to 
work  hard  at  his  profession.  There  was 
little  time  to  perfect  the  idea  which  had 
seized  him.  He  worked  at  intervals, 
however,  on  the  invention  in  a  small 
room  in  his  brother's  house,  which  was 
provided  with  a  lathe.  Here  he  made 
some  of  his  models.  His  artist  life  was 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         71 

unsuccessful ;  and  this  want  of  success 
led  him  probably,  as  it  had  done  several 
times  before  during  his  life,  to  incline  to 
invention.  At  one  time  he  had  strong 
hopes  of  being  selected  by  Congress  to 
paint  a  great  historical  picture  for  the 
rotunda  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 
There  might  be  placed  the  departure  or 
the  return  of  Columbus  —  subjects  which 
had  long  filled  his  mind.  John  Quincy 
Adams,  then  a  member  of  a  committee 
of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  to  which 
the  subject  of  the  picture  was  referred, 
recommended  that  the  competition  be 
opened  to  foreign  artists ;  for,  in  his 
opinion,  there  were  no  American  artists 
competent  to  undertake  the  decoration 
of  the  rotunda.  James  Fenimore  Coo- 
per wrote  in  the  New  York  Evening 
Post  a  severe  reply  to  the  remarks  of  ex- 
President  Adams.  This  article  was  at- 
tributed to  Morse,  and  perhaps  con- 
tributed to  the  rejection  of  his  name  by 
the  committee.  This  was  a  severe  blow 


72  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
to  Morse.  It  may,  however,  have  been 
a  blessing  in  disguise  ;  for  it  led  him  to 
turn  again  to  his  invention.  Washing- 
ton Allston  in  a  letter  to  him  at  this  time 
said :  "  I  know  what  your  disappointment 
must  have  been  at  this  result,  and  most 
sincerely  do  I  sympathise  with  you.  .  .  . 
You  have  it  still  in  your  power  to  let 
the  world  know  what  you  can  do.  Dis- 
miss it,  then,  from  your  mind,  and  deter- 
mine to  paint  all  the  better  for  it.  God 
bless  you  I" 

This  and  similar  letters,  which  he  re- 
ceived at  this  time,  show  the  affection 
which  he  had  inspired  in  his  friends. 
A  meeting  of  artists  was  called  to  pro- 
test at  the  action  of  the  government,  and 
an  association  was  formed  entitled  "A 
Joint  Stock  Association  of  Artists  for 
procuring  Morse  to  paint  an  Historical 
Picture. "  In  a  short  time  three  thou- 
sand dollars  was  raised ;  and,  in  addi- 
tion to  this,  a  gentleman  of  Brooklyn 
offered  to  contribute  canvas  and  all  the 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOKSE  73 
materials  for  the  picture.  Morse  was 
greatly  inspirited  by  this  most  gratifying 
effort  of  his  friends.  He  exclaimed  that 
never  had  he  read  or  known  of  such  an 
act  of  professional  generosity,  and  he  re- 
solved to  paint  a  picture  to  be  entitled 
The  Signing  of  the  First  Compact  on 
Board  the  Mayflower.  The  association 
had  suggested  a  small  picture ;  but 
Morse  —  who  all  his  artistic  life  found 
no  canvas  large  enough  —  declared  that 
he  would  paint  one  the  size  of  the  panels 
in  the  rotunda.  The  picture,  however, 
was  never  painted  ;  for  the  invention  of 
the  telegraph  and  the  business  entangle- 
ments were  destined  to  occupy  all  his 
time.  He  finally  returned  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  association  the  amount  they 
had  contributed,  with  interest. 

In  1835  he  was  appointed  Professor  of 
the  Literature  of  the  Arts  of  Design  in 
the  New  York  City  University.  He 
moved  to  a  building  on  Washington 
Square  (the  University),  and  immedi- 


74         SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

ately  set  up  portions  of  his  telegraphic 
apparatus.  It  was  generally  remarked 
at  the  time,  with  doubtful  shakes  of  the 
head,  that  the  professor  was  occupied 
more  with  invention  than  with  art.  It 
was  fortunate  for  the  university  that  he 
was  not  dismissed  —  a  peril  which  might 
even  now  meet  a  professor  with  a  voca- 
tion and  an  avocation.  The  work  on  his 
invention  was  certainly  much  retarded 
by  his  professional  work ;  and  he  prob- 
ably enjoyed  to  the  full,  as  the  phrase 
is,  the  experience  of  a  professor  who  is 
filled  with  thoughts  of  a  great  investiga- 
tion and  must  devote  his  time  to  the 
cultivation  of  mediocre  minds.  At  first, 
apparently,  he  made  a  complicated  ap- 
paratus, with  a  keyboard  similar  to  that 
of  a  piano,  and  with  a  mechanical  ar- 
rangement for  moving  along  sets  of  types, 
for  making  and  breaking  the  electric 
circuit.  The  complicated  devices  gave 
way  to  simpler  ones,  and  finally  he 
adopted  the  single  key  which  is  now  in 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  75 
common  use.  Instead  of  a  pencil  or  pen 
to  record  the  message,  he  began  to  use  a 
single  hard  point,  which  rested  upon  a 
ribbon  of  paper  which  was  moved  along 
by  clock-work  over  a  groove  in  a  cylin- 
der. Many  gentlemen  testified  in  the 
subsequent  litigation  to  seeing  Morse's 
apparatus  at  that  time.  Among  these 
observers  was  the  Rev.  Henry  B.  Tappan, 
subsequently  president  of  the  University 
of  Michigan.  He  testified  to  seeing  the 
first  transmission  and  recording  of  words 
by  lightning  in  Morse's  room  in  1835. 
He  stated  that  a  short  telegraphic  line 
had  been  strung  around  a  long  room  in 
the  university ;  and  he  says,  "  I  recollect 
well  my  delight  at  hearing  the  words 
which  I  silently  gave  in  at  one  end  ac- 
curately read  off  from  the  strip  of  paper 
at  the  other."  Daniel  Huntington,  sub- 
sequently president  of  the  National 
Academy  of  Design,  was  at  that  time  a 
pupil  of  Morse  ;  and  he  testified  to  seeing 
Morse's  instrument  in  operation  in  the 


76  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
year  1835.  The  Hon.  Hamilton  Fish  said 
that  he  witnessed  the  telegraph  in  op- 
eration in  1836,  "  recording  messages 
transmitted  through  some  mile  or  more 
of  wire  suspended  in  successive  turns 
around  the  walls  ;  there  was  a  small  bat- 
tery in  one  corner  of  the  room  and  a  sort 
of  clock-work  machinery  in  the  other, 
and  the  mysterious  little  click,  click, 
click  of  the  former  produced  a  simulta- 
neous record  on  the  other. ' '  Commodore 
Shubrick  of  the  United  States  l^avy  also 
testified  to  seeing  the  telegraphic  instru- 
ments in  actual  operation  in  the  winter 
of  1835. 

A  very  important  point  in  regard  to 
this  early  work  of  Morse  on  an  electro- 
magnetic telegraph  now  arises.  Did  he 
invent  the  relay  which  made  the  tele- 
graph a  success?  He  undoubtedly  had 
perfected  an  alphabet,  and  had  set  up  an 
experimental  line  representing  a  short 
distance.  Henry,  in  1835  or  early  in 
1836,  had  extended  wires  across  the  yard 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE        77 

of  the  college  grounds  at  Princeton,  from 
the  upper  story  of  the  library  building 
to  the  Philosophical  Hall  on  the  opposite 
side,  through  which  he  sent  signals 
which  were  distinguished  by  the  number 
of  taps  on  an  electro-magnetic  bell.  He 
had  shown  that,  in  order  to  transmit  the 
current  to  a  great  distance,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  use  a  large  number  of  galvanised 
cells,  and  to  wind  the  transmitting  wire 
many  times  around  the  receiving  magnet, 
which  he  therefore  called  an  intensity 
magnet.  He  proved  that  an  operator 
could  thus  produce  the  most  energetic 
actions  at  any  required  distance  by  pro- 
viding this  intensity  magnet  with  an 
oscillating  armature  with  a  suitable  pro- 
longation to  open  and  close  an  adjoining 
circuit  with  a  smaller  number  of  cells 
and  what  he  called  a  quantity  magnet ; 
in  other  words,  a  magnet  with  a  small 
number  of  turns  of  wire  so  arranged  that 
the  electrical  resistance  of  the  relay 
battery  should  approximately  equal  the 


78  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
resistance  of  the  wire  around  the  mag- 
net. This  closing  of  a  relay  circuit,  he 
showed,  could  be  accomplished  by  the 
swing  of  the  most  delicate  galvanometer 
needle  ;  and  he  exhibited  a  large  electro- 
magnet, which,  being  set  in  action  by 
such  a  relay  device,  could  lift  more  than 
three  thousand  pounds.  Here  was  evi- 
dently the  principle  of  the  relay.  It  is 
said  that  on  a  visit  to  London  with  Pro- 
fessor Bache  in  1837,  Henry  met  Wheat- 
stone,  then  professor  of  experimental 
philosophy  in  King's  College ;  and  he 
freely  explained  his  arrangement  of  a 
local  circuit  which  was  set  in  action  by 
a  main  circuit.  Henry  had  the  pleasure 
of  describing  his  own  device,  which  was 
substantially  the  same  and  which  had 
been  used  the  year  previous.  Wheat- 
stone,  in  conjunction  with  W.  F.  Cooke, 
secured  a  patent  on  June  12,  1837,  which 
included  the  device  of  the  relay.  Morse, 
in  a  pamphlet  published  in  Paris,  1867, 
relating  the  history  of  his  invention, 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         79 

states  that  between  1835  and  1837  there 
was  a  very  important  addition  to  his 
telegraphic  system  which  he  did  not 
dwell  upon  at  that  epoch  ;  for  it  was  not 
necessary  in  the  exhibitions  which  he 
made  at  that  time,  but  which  was  essen- 
tial when  the  telegraph  line  was  ex- 
tended beyond  the  limits  of  a  hall.  He 
states  that  he  knew  that  the  electro- 
magnet at  great  distances  would  become 
so  enfeebled  that  it  would  be  inoperative 
for  printing.  He  says  that  he  had  al- 
ready conceived  of  a  plan  for  extending 
the  operation  of  the  telegraph,  which 
was  so  simple  that  it  hardly  needed  a 
drawing  to  exhibit  it  ;  and  he  goes  on  to 
describe  the  relay,  and  calls  his  colleague 
Professor  Gale  to  witness  that  in  Janu- 
ary, 1836,  he  had  imparted  to  him  the 
plan  of  the  relay. 

We  therefore  turn  our  attention  to 
Professor  L.  D.  Gale,  who  was  a  colleague 
professor  in  the  University  of  the  City 
of  New  York,  and  who  afterward  was 


80  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
admitted  to  a  fourth  interest  in  the  in- 
vention by  Professor  Morse.  Gale,  in 
the  litigation  which  arose  over  Morse's 
patents,  gives  a  very  circumstantial  ac- 
count of  the  state  of  the  telegraph  in 
1836.  The  fact  that  he  was  subsequently 
interested  pecuniarily  in  the  invention 
destroys,  to  my  mind,  much  of  the  value 
of  his  testimony.  He  says  that  they  had 
frequent  consultations  on  methods  of 
extending  the  distance  to  which  signals 
could  be  transmitted.  Morse  often  ex- 
plained his  plans  by  which  this  could  be 
accomplished. 

" Suppose,"  said  Professor  Morse, 
"that  in  experimenting  on  twenty  miles 
of  wire  we  should  find  that  the  power  of 
magnetism  is  so  feeble  that  it  will  not 
move  a  lever  with  certainty  a  hair's 
breadth :  that  would  be  insufficient,  it 
may  be,  to  write  or  print ;  yet  it  would 
be  sufficient  to  close  and  break  another 
or  a  second  circuit  twenty  miles  farther, 
and  this  second  circuit  could  be  made, 


SAMUEL   F.  B.  MORSE        81 

in  the  same  manner,  to  break  and  close 
a  third  circuit  twenty  miles  farther,  and 
so  on  around  the  globe."  Gale  then 
goes  on  to  describe  circumstantially  the 
relay,  giving  drawings  of  a  magnet  on 
the  main  circuit  drawing  down  an  arma- 
ture or  rod  of  iron  and  closing  a  local  or 
relay  circuit  in  which  there  is  a  supple- 
mentary battery.  Professor  Gale  is  very 
circumstantial  with  his  dates,  for  they 
were  all-important  for  the  purposes  of 
the  patent  lawyers  who  conducted  the 
subsequent  litigation.  He  mentions  an 
exhibition  in  the  cabinet  of  the  univer- 
sity on  September  2,  1837,  when  Profes- 
sor Danberry  of  Oxford  University,  Eng- 
land, together  with  Mr.  Alfred  Yail, 
were  present,  and  witnessed  the  action 
of  the  telegraph  over  a  circuit  of  1, 700 
feet  of  copper  wire.  The  presence  of 
Mr.  Vail  was  an  important  fact,  for  he  had 
hesitated  to  put  money  into  the  invention 
until  it  could  be  shown  that  the  action 
of  the  telegraph  could  be  extended  to 


82  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
great  distances.  Immediately  after  this 
interview,  Alfred  Vail  and  his  brother 
George  Vail  furnished  Morse  with  the 
means  for  an  experiment  on  a  larger 
scale.  This  was  in  1837,  and  Morse  could 
have  been  informed  of  Henry's  experi- 
ments. Indeed,  it  is  stated  in  an  address 
on  Joseph  Henry  delivered  at  Princeton 
College  June  16,  1885,  by  Edward  W. 
Dickerson,  LL.D.,  the  distinguished  pat- 
ent lawyer,  that  Professor  Gale  went  to 
Henry  to  discover  how  the  electric  cur- 
rent could  be  strengthened  to  operate 
stations  at  a  distance.  In  this  address, 
Dickerson  dwells  upon  Henry's  devotion 
to  pure  science,  and  says:  "It  must 
have  occurred  to  him  at  times,  when  he 
needed  money  for  his  experiments,  and 
when  he  saw  the  fruits  of  his  labour  en- 
riching the  world,  that  he  might  have 
taken  some  share  of  the  wealth  ;  but  he 
would  not  taint  with  selfishness  his  gen- 
erous gift.  How  valuable  in  money  it 
was  he  knew  full  well.  Even  for  that 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  83 
fragment  of  it,  then  for  six  years  by  him 
given  to  the  public,  which  was  carried 
to  Morse  in  1837  to  enable  him  to  con- 
struct his  special  plan  of  a  recording 
telegraph  in  that  year,  now  practically 
obsolete,  Dr.  Gale,  who  carried  it,  se- 
cured a  share  in  the  patent  which  was 
founded  upon  it,  and  without  which  it 
could  not  have  existed.  For  that  share 
fifteen  thousand  in  cash  was  subsequently 
paid  to  him." 

While  I  was  working  in  the  rooms  de- 
voted to  physical  experiments  in  Har- 
vard University  in  the  winter  of  1873,  a 
dignified  elderly  gentleman  was  ushered 
into  the  rooms.  He  had  a  remarkable 
philosophic  countenance,  which  recalled 
in  its  massiveness  that  of  Humboldt  and 
Helmholtz.  The  visitor  was  Joseph 
Henry,  and  I  showed  him  the  electrical 
apparatus  which  was  in  use  at  the  time. 
He  listened  with  great  gravity  to  my 
account  of  the  experiments  which  were 
in  progress,  and  on  his  departure,  turn- 


84        SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 
ing  toward  a  table  covered  with  magnets 
and  telegraphic  relays,  remarked,   "If  I 
had  patented  those  devices,  I  should  have 
reaped  a  large  fortune. " 

Let  us  follow  the  career  of  the  man 
who  was  destined  to  receive  great  re- 
wards, and  whose  name  has  been  in- 
scribed among  those  who  shall  shine  for- 
ever like  the  stars  in  the  firmament. 
During  those  strenuous  years  of  professor- 
ship in  the  University  of  the  City  of  New 
York,  Morse  was  very  poor.  He  lodged 
and  ate  his  food  in  his  studio,  generally 
preparing  it  with  his  own  hands.  In 
order  to  conceal  his  manner  of  life  from 
his  friends,  he  brought  his  food  to  his 
rooms  at  night.  It  was  difficult  at  that 
time  to  obtain  electrical  supplies.  In- 
sulated wire  was  costly.  The  batteries 
were  poor  and  inconstant,  and  therefore 
failed  when  they  were  needed  most. 
Morse  was  compelled  to  go  to  a  black- 
smith to  have  his  wire  shaped  into  cores 
for  his  electrical  magnets,  and  he  wound 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  85 
these  cores  himself.  Henry  also  laboured 
under  even  greater  difficulties  in  regard 
to  the  construction  of  his  electrical  ap- 
paratus. These  difficulties  must  be 
weighed  when  we  wonder  why  men 
halted  so  long  over  the  steps  which  now 
seem  so  simple.  Morse  was  often  asked 
why  he  did  not  speedily  construct  a  du- 
plicate instrument  for  returning  an 
answer  from  a  distant  station.  He  ex- 
hibited in  1835  only  a  sending  instru- 
ment. He  answered  that  he  had  not  the 
means  to  construct  it.  The  cost  of  such 
a  duplicate  instrument  to-day  would  not 
exceed  five  dollars.  It  was  suggested  that 
he  might  have  borrowed  the  requisite 
sum.  He  says  :  ( i  My  reply  must  be  that 
I  preferred  the  delay,  and  the  hazards 
of  a  delay,  to  the  hazard  of  being  unable 
to  repay  the  loan.  I  must  be  pardoned 
if  I  state  that,  even  from  my  earliest 
youth,  I  ever  had  the  deepest  repugnance 
to  incur  debt  by  borrowing,  even  from 
my  own  relatives." 


86        SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

In  1837  Mr.  Alfred  Vail,  son  of  Judge 
Stephen  Vail,  entered  into  partnership 
with  Morse,  and  provided  him  with  the 
means  for  pushing  his  invention.  The 
Vails  were  owners  of  iron  and  brass 
works  at  Speedwell,  Morris  County, 
New  Jersey ;  and  Alfred  Vail  was  in- 
terested in  mechanical  engineering,  es- 
pecially in  connection  with  the  working 
of  iron  and  brass.  He  was  allotted  one- 
fourth  interest  in  Morse's  patents,  and 
Morse  was  given  the  superior  facilities 
of  the  Vails7  manufactory.  Just  about 
the  time  of  the  formation  of  this  part- 
nership, the  Hon.  Levi  Woodbury,  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States,  in  consequence  of  the  reports  in 
regard  to  methods  of  telegraphing  in 
Europe,  issued  a  circular  to  "  certain 
collectors  of  the  customs,  commanders 
of  revenue  cutters,  and  other  persons," 
asking  for  information  in  regard  to  the 
various  systems  proposed.  He  particu- 
larly wished  to  know  how  far  communi- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  87 
cation  could  be  established,  with  what 
rapidity  it  could  be  worked,  and  what 
would  be  the  probable  expense.  He 
says:  "It  would  add  to  the  interest 
of  the  subject  if  you  would  offer  views 
as  to  the  practicability  of  writing,  with  a 
system  of  telegraphs  for  communication 
in  clear  weather  and  in  the  daytime, 
another  for  communication  in  fogs,  by 
cannon  or  otherwise,  and  in  the  night 
by  the  same  mode,  or  by  rockets,  fires, 
etc." 

Morse  immediately  replied  to  this  cir- 
cular, stating  that  he  had  made  arrange- 
ments to  demonstrate  at  Washington  by 
January  1,  1838,  his  superior  plan  for 
accomplishing  telegraphic  communica- 
tion. He  enters  into  many  particulars 
in  regard  to  the  probable  expense  of  the 
system  and  in  respect  to  the  disposition 
of  the  wires.  He  evidently  thought  at 
that  time  that  it  would  be  better  to  bury 
them  underground.  He  says  that,  if  the 
wires  are  stretched  above  ground,  on 


88  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
poles,  they  might  be  a  temptation  to 
mischievous  persons ;  but  he  points  out 
that  the  same  objection  had  been  made 
to  water  pipes,  gas  pipes,  and  railroads. 
He  remarks  that,  if  his  system  of  tele- 
graphing should  be  established,  it  would 
have  little  rest  day  or  night.  "The 
advantage  of  communicating  intelligence 
instantaneously,  in  hundreds  of  instances 
of  daily  occurrence,  would  warrant  such 
a  rate  of  postage  (if  it  may  be  so  called) 
as  would  amply  defray  all  expenses  of 
the  first  cost  of  establishing  the  system 
and  of  guarding  it  and  keeping  it  in 
repair. "  Immediately  on  sending  this 
letter,  Morse  filed  a  caveat  in  Washing- 
ton, September  28,  1837,  in  which  is  to 
be  found  a  careful  description  of  his 
method,  embraced  under  the  following 
heads :  — 

1.  A  system  of  signs,  by  which  num- 
bers, and  consequently  words  and  sen- 
tences, are  signified. 

2.  A  set  of  type,  adapted  to  regulate 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  89 
and  communicate  the  signs,  with  cases 
for  convenient  keeping  of  the  type,  and 
rules  in  which  to  set  up  the  type. 

3.  An  apparatus  called  the  portrule, 
for  regulating  the  movement  of  the  type 
rules,  which  rules,  by  means  of  the  type, 
in  their  turn  regulate  the  times  and  inter- 
vals of  the  passage  of  electricity. 

4.  A  register  which  records  the  signs 
permanently. 

5.  A  dictionary  or  vocabulary  of  words 
numbered  and  adapted  to  this  system  of 
telegraph. 

6.  Modes  of  laying  conductors  to  pre- 
serve them  from  injury. 

In  reading  the  specifications  of  the 
patent,  we  are  struck  with  the  fact  that 
it  contained  only  the  germ  of  the  alpha- 
bet subsequently  adopted.  The  types, 
the  portrule,  the  register,  the  dictionary, 
and  the  mode  of  laying  conductors  to 
preserve  them  from  injury  were  destined 
to  pass  out  of  use.  No  reference  is  made 
to  a  relay.  With  the  exception  of  the 


90         SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
alphabet,  Henry  could  have  obtained  a 
more  comprehensive  patent. 

In  a  letter  to  Alfred  Vail  at  the  time 
of  obtaining  this  caveat,  Morse  says : 
"  Professor  Gale's  services  will  be  in- 
Valuable  to  us,  and  I  am  glad  he  is  dis- 
posed to  enter  into  the  matter  with  2eal. 
The  more  I  think  of  the  whole  matter, 
the  more  I  am  convinced  that,  if  it  is 
perseveringly  pushed  at  the  moment 
(so  favourable  on  many  accounts  to  its 
adoption  by  government),  the  result  will 
be  all  that  we  ought  to  wish  for.  We 
want  the  wire.  We  are  ready  for  some 
important  experiments  necessary  to  es- 
tablish with  certainty  some  points  not 
yet  established  by  experiments.  The 
law  of  the  magnetic  influence  at  a  distance 
is  not  yet  discovered  ;  and  your  twenty 
miles  of  wire  may  enable  us  to  make  this 
discovery,  and  to  keep  ahead  of  our 
European  rivals,  as  well  as  to  proceed 
with  certainty  in  our  other  arrange- 
ments." This  letter  shows  that  he  did 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  91 
not  yet  appreciate  the  law  of  the  relay. 
In  November,  1837,  Professor  Gale,  by 
increasing  the  battery  power  and  also  in- 
creasing the  tnrns  of  wire  on  the  electro- 
magnet—  that  is,  by  using  Henry's  in- 
tensity magnet  —  succeeded  in  sending 
signals  ten  miles.  Morse  immediately 
communicated  this  result  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury.  On  January  24,  1838, 
he  gave  an  exhibition  of  his  telegraph 
to  some  friends  in  New  York ;  and  the 
Journal  of  Commerce  of  January  29  said 
of  it :  "  Intelligence  was  instantaneously 
transmitted  through  a  circuit  of  ten 
miles,  and  legibly  written  on  a  cylinder 
at  the  extremity  of  the  circuit.  .  .  .  Pro- 
fessor Morse  has  recently  improved  on 
his  mode  of  marking,  by  which  he  can 
dispense  altogether  with  the  telegraphic 
dictionary,  using  letters  instead  of  num- 
ber ;  and  he  can  transmit  ten  words  per 
minute,  which  is  more  than  double  the 
number  which  can  be  transmitted  by 
means  of  the  dictionary."  Thus  it  is 


92  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
seen  that  the  great  labour  which  was  be- 
stowed on  the  compilation  of  a  dictionary 
had  been  thrown  away.  Soon  the  type 
arrangement  was  destined  to  go,  and  in 
time  the  Morse  register.  Morse  con- 
sidered that  his  method  of  recording  or 
printing  the  messages  was  one  of  the 
principal  features  of  his  invention  which 
distinguished  it  from  the  European  meth- 
ods. It  is  a  curious  fact  that  it  is  not 
used  at  all  in  America.  The  operator 
reads  by  Henry's  method,  that  of  sound. 
The  recording  or  printing  methods  are 
still  in  vogue  in  Europe.  Once,  in  visit- 
ing the  offices  of  the  London  telegraphic 
system,  I  was  shown  a  room  where  the 
future  operator  was  learning  to  read 
messages  by  sound.  In  America  it  was 
found  that  the  operator  had  learned  the 
method  almost  instinctively,  and  disre- 
garded the  printed  records  of  the  regis- 
ter upon  the  clock-work  and  other  me- 
chanical arrangements  on  which  Morse 
had  spent  so  much  invention.  Nothing 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE         93 

to-day  is  left  of  Morse's  invention  but  the 
alphabet  and  a  few  mechanical  points. 
The  tendency  of  the  time  seems  to  be 
toward  sound  rather  than  to  printing, 
and  even  the  Morse  alphabet  seems  to  be 
doomed. 

Let  us,  however,  study  more  closely 
the  action  of  Morse's  mind  at  the  time 
he  pressed  his  invention  upon  the  at- 
tention of  the  government.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  he  was  fully  possessed  with 
the  value  of  his  invention  and  the  ulti- 
mate practicability  of  it.  He  had  the 
sanguine  nature  of  an  inventor.  He  was 
alert,  moreover,  quick  to  seize  ideas 
which  might  aid  him  in  his  main  ob- 
ject—  quick,  possibly,  to  assimilate  such 
ideas  so  thoroughly  that  they  often  ap- 
peared to  have  emanated  from  his  own 
mind.  This  cerebration  of  thoughts, 
which  contribute  to  the  making  of  a 
great  design,  is  a  striking  peculiarity  of 
some  minds.  Most  professors  have  had 
students  who  honestly  believe  that  the 


94         SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

investigation  which  has  been  suggested 
to  them,  and  which  has  been  aided  by 
the  ideas  and  long  experience  of  the 
teacher,  is  entirely  their  own.  Such 
students  have  a  peculiar  hospitality  of 
mind.  Morse  was  so  strongly  possessed 
with  the  idea  of  an  electro- magnetic  tele- 
graph that  all  the  work  of  Henry  and 
Wheatstone  seemed  necessarily  tributary. 
He  was  alert,  I  have  said,  and  business- 
like. Writing  to  his  partners  on  re- 
ceiving news  that  his  papers  had  been 
favourably  received  at  the  Patent  Office, 
he  says,  "If  you  intend  to  do  anything 
in  England  or  France,  no  time  is  to  be 
lost."  He  was  approached  by  certain 
men  who  desired  to  erect  private  lines 
for  the  furtherance  of  business  purposes. 
He  writes  of  this  to  his  partners,  enjoin- 
ing secrecy  :  "But  be  close  on  the  sub- 
ject, for  it  is  essential  to  its  success  that 
it  be  secret.  Verbum  sat.  I  am  not 
idle,  I  assure  you.77  He  writes  again : 
"We  have  just  heard  that  Professor 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  95 
Wheatstone  has  tried  an  experiment 
with  his  method  —  twenty  miles  —  with 
success.  We  have  therefore  nothing  to 
fear.  We  also  learn  that  he  has  sent  to 
take  out  a  patent,  to  this  country.  My 
caveat  will  be  in  his  way.  Professor 
Locke,  of  Cincinnati,  who  has  just  re- 
turned, tells  us  all  this  ;  and  he  knows 
Wheatstone  and  his  whole  plan,  and 
says  that  there  are  no  less  than  six  dis- 
putants for  the  priority  of  the  invention 
in  England.  He  also  says  that  no  one 
of  the  European  plans  pretends  to  record 
permanently ;  that  mine  is  decidedly  su- 
perior in  that  respect,  and  peculiar." 

Here  we  see  evidences  of  alertness 
and  business  ability.  This  man  was  a 
type  of  the  modern  business  electrician 
rather  than  of  the  philosopher  of  which 
Henry  and  Faraday  were  such  exem- 
plars. We  are  reminded  of  the  remark 
made  of  Morse's  father  :  "He  had  such 
an  impetus  ! ' >  He  apparently  recog- 
nised the  value  of  cautious  publicity 


96  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
in  leading  people  to  connect  his  name 
with  the  electro-magnetic  telegraph; 
for,  in  response  to  an  invitation  from  the 
Franklin  Institute  of  Philadelphia,  he 
exhibited  his  apparatus  when  on  his  way 
to  Washington.  Among  his  audience 
was  Joseph  Saxton,  subsequently  at  the 
head  of  the  department  of  weights  and 
measures  under  the  superintendent  of 
the  Coast  Survey.  There  were  also 
present  other  prominent  mechanicians. 
Arriving  in  Washington,  Morse  setup  his 
apparatus  in  a  room  occupied  by  the 
Committee  on  Commerce  in  the  Capitol. 
At  first  his  visitors  went  away  with  little 
belief  in  the  practical  nature  of  the  in- 
vention. On  February  21,  1838,  Presi- 
dent Yan  Bur  en  and  his  entire  cabinet 
visited  the  room,  and  Morse  exhibited 
his  telegraph  in  operation  through  ten 
miles  of  wire  contained  on  a  reel.  The 
Hon.  F.  O.  J.  Smith,  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Commerce,  had  been  pre- 
viously interested  by  Morse  in  his  inven- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  97 
tion ;  and  Morse  had  written  a  long 
letter  to  Smith,  showing  how  desirable 
it  would  be  for  the  government  to  own 
the  invention,  and  to  have  the  sole  right 
to  grant  its  use  under  important  restric- 
tions to  the  public.  The  invention  was 
of  such  importance  to  the  government 
that  it  could  well  afford  to  aid  the  in- 
ventor by  providing  means  for  an  ex- 
tended trial  of  one  hundred  miles  ;  and, 
in  return  for  suitable  aid,  he  promised 
"to  enter  into  no  arrangement  to  dis- 
pose of  his  patent  rights  to  any  individual 
or  company  previous  to  offering  it  to  the 
government  for  a  just  and  reasonable 
compensation."  Again,  after  the  ex- 
hibition of  February  21,  he  writes  to 
Mr.  Smith,  giving  an  estimate  of  the 
probable  cost  of  such  a  trial.  He  con- 
cludes that  a  trial  of  fifty  miles  would 
be  sufficiently  satisfactory,  and  that  such 
a  trial  would  cost  twenty-six  thousand 
dollars.  A  table  of  items  of  expense 
was  given.  The  most  interesting  item 


98  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
was  one  of  twelve  hundred  dollars  for 
preparation  of  the  wire  by  the  use  of 
such  things  as  "  caoutchouc,  wax,  resin, 
tar,  with  reels  for  winding,  soldering, 
etc.,  say  six  dollars  per  mile." 

The  experiment  was  to  be  tried  on  a 
metallic  circuit,  with  wires  above  ground. 
But  it  was  evidently  contemplated  ulti- 
mately to  bury  the  wires,  for  it  is  ex- 
pressly stated  that  the  estimate  of  twenty- 
six  thousand  dollars  did  not  include  the 
expense  necessary  to  lay  the  wires  under 
ground.  Having  sent  this  letter,  Morse 
then  drew  up  a  respectful  memorial  to 
Congress,  asking  it  set  terms  for  an  ap- 
propriation. One  sees  the  directing 
hand  of  the  Hon.  F.  O.  J.  Smith  in  all 
this,  and  the  business  ability  of  Morse  in 
using  Mr.  Smith.  On  April  6,  1838, 
Mr.  Smith,  as  chairman  of  the  Commit- 
tee of  Commerce,  made  a  long  report, 
arguing  that  the  government,  in  view 
of  the  importance  of  Professor  Morse's 
invention,  should  make  an  appropriation 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  99 
of  thirty  thousand  dollars  for  a  trial  of 
fifty  miles.  Mr.  Smith  dilates  upon  the 
importance  of  the  invention.  It  was 
evident  that  Morse  had  made  a  complete 
convert  of  him.  He  says  in  the  report : 
"  With  the  means  of  almost  instantaneous 
communication  of  intelligence  between 
the  most  distant  points  of  the  country, 
and  simultaneously  between  any  given 
number  of  intermediate  points  which 
this  invention  contemplates,  space  will 
be  to  all  practical  purposes  of  informa- 
tion completely  annihilated  between  the 
states  of  the  Union,  as  also  between  the 
individual  citizens  thereof.  The  citizens 
will  be  invested  with,  and  reduce  to 
daily  and  familiar  use,  an  approach  to 
the  High  Attribute  of  Ubiquity,  in  a 
degree  that  the  human  mind  until 
recently  has  hardly  dared  to  contem- 
plate seriously  as  belonging  to  human 
agency,  from  an  instinctive  feeling  of  re- 
ligious reverence  and  reserve  on  a  power 
of  such  awful  grandeur. ' ? 


100       SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

After  this  burst  of  religious  feeling, 
Mr.  Smith  intimated  to  Mr.  Morse  his 
willingness  to  take  an  interest  in  the  in- 
vention. He  accordingly  resigned  his 
seat  in  Congress,  and  became  a  partner 
in  the  enterprise,  which  was  divided 
into  sixteen  shares.  Morse  held  nine ; 
Mr.  Smith,  four  ;  Mr.  Alfred  Vail,  two  ; 
and  Professor  Gale,  one.  Again  one  sees 
in  this  distribution  no  diminution  of 
business  ability.  One  had  to  do  with  an 
alert  inventor. 


IV. 

ON  May  16,  1838,  Morse  sailed  for 
Europe  to  secure  foreign  patents.  His 
third  European  trip  was  destined  to  be 
a  melancholy  failure  from  a  pecuniary 
point  of  view.  The  English  authorities 
were  apparently  persuaded  of  the  prior- 
ity and  superior  value  of  Wheatstone's 
invention,  for  the  American  inventor 
was  denied  even  a  hearing.  It  was 
claimed  that  his  invention  had  been 
published  in  the  London  Mechanic's 
Magazine  of  February  10,  1838.  The 
article  had  been  copied  from  Silliman's 
Journal  of  Science  of  October,  1837.  This 
article  merely  stated  that  the  distinguish- 
ing features  of  Morse's  invention  were  a 
register  which  permanently  recorded  the 
message  in  characters  easily  legible,  and 
a  single  wire.  It  spoke,  too,  of  points  or 
marks  to  be  read  and  of  a  pencil  that 
marks.  The  English  authorities  con- 
sidered this  a  prior  publication,  and 


102  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOUSE 
therefore  refused  to  issue  a  patent. 
Morse  bitterly  condemned  this  attitude, 
and  in  able  letters  requested  a  fuller 
hearing.  This,  however,  was  refused ; 
and  the  only  alternative  was  to  appeal 
to  Parliament  for  a  special  act.  This 
was  a  long  and  doubtful  proceeding,  and 
Morse  was  not  inclined  to  it,  and  accord- 
ingly proceeded  to  try  his  fortunes  on 
the  Continent.  While  in  England,  he 
satisfied  himself  that  Wheatstone's  tele- 
graph was  manifestly  inferior  to  his  own. 
Wheatstone  required  "six  conductors 
between  the  points  of  intercommunica- 
tion for  a  single  instrument  at  each  of  the 
two  termini.77  The  receiver  consisted 
of  five  magnetic  needles  which  served  to 
point  to  letters  upon  a  dial  plate.  It  was 
not,  therefore,  a  recording  telegraph. 

Morse  was  more  successful  in  Paris,  and 
obtained  a  patent ;  and  he  was  gratified 
at  the  interest  in  his  invention  displayed 
by  the  many  distinguished  Frenchmen. 
He  exhibited  the  telegraph  at  the  French 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOKSE       103 

Institute.  Baron  Humboldt  expressed 
the  opinion  that  it  was  the  best  of  all 
the  plans  that  had  been  devised.  The 
administrator  in  chief  of  the  French 
bureau  of  telegraphs,  M.  Alphonse  Foy, 
also  expressed  the  same  opinion.  The 
telegraph  was  exhibited  to  M.  Arago, 
the  great  physicist,  who  was  delighted 
with  it,  and  proposed  that  it  should  be 
exhibited  to  the  Academy  of  Sciences. 
Among  those  present  at  the  stance  were 
Arago,  Humboldt,  Gay-Lussac.  Morse 
says  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Vail :  "  Arago  de- 
scribed it  to  them,  and  I  showed  its  ac- 
tion. A  buzz  of  admiration  and  appro- 
bation filled  the  whole  hall ;  and  the 
exclamations,  'Extraordinaire ! J  'Tres 
bien  ! '  'Tres  admirable  ! J  I  heard  on  all 
sides.  The  sentiment  was  universal. " 
Truly,  this  reception  was  most  gratify- 
ing, and  augured  well  for  the  future. 
Morse  was  at  first  full  of  hope,  but  he 
was  destined  to  a  fresh  disappointment. 
He  was  received  everywhere  with  great 


104  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 
politeness.  His  invention  was  lauded, 
but  he  seemed  no  nearer  to  any  practical 
results.  By  the  French  law  an  inventor 
is  obliged  to  put  his  invention  in  prac- 
tical operation  within  two  years  from 
the  issue  of  his  patent.  Morse  tried  to 
effect  this  along  the  St.  Germain  Bail- 
road  Company's  lines,  a  distance  of 
seven  miles  from  Paris  to  St.  Germain, 
but  was  unsuccessful.  He  was  told  that, 
if  the  telegraph  was  to  be  a  government 
matter,  he  could  not  enter  into  relations 
with  private  individuals  ;  and  the  gov- 
ernment did  not  act.  Altogether,  he  was 
having  an  experience  of  French  polite- 
ness, which  was  no  more  productive  of 
practical  results  than  his  experience  with 
English  brusqueness.  He  wrote  to  the 
Hon.  F.  O.  J.  Smith,  lamenting  his  own 
lack  of  business  ability  in  pushing  mat- 
ters to  a  conclusion.  He  thought  of  pro- 
posing that,  in  case  the  government 
would  do  nothing  to  form  a  company, 
he  should  take  the  right  at  one  thousand 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE       105 

francs  per  mile,  paying  the  proprietors 
fifty  per  cent,  in  stock  and  fifty  per 
cent,  in  cash,  raising  about  fifty  thousand 
francs  for  a  preliminary  trial.  He  re- 
marks again  that  he  is  a  child  in  business 
matters.  "  I  can  invent  and  perfect  the 
invention,  but  further  the  deponent  saith 
not.'7  The  critic  of  his  life  labours, 
however,  feels  that  he  underrated  him- 
self in  this  respect.  He  had  pushed  his 
invention  in  an  energetic  manner  and 
had  already  enlisted  capital.  His  visit 
to  Europe  gave  great  publicity  to  his 
invention.  It  was  a  lecture  on  an  ex- 
tended scale  and  on  an  elevated  plat- 
form, and  was  not  without  ultimate  re- 
sults, notwithstanding  that  he  failed  in 
England  and  never  received  anything 
from  his  French  patent.  While  in  Paris, 
Morse  also  enlisted  the  interest  of  Baron 
Meyendorf,  the  agent  of  the  Emperor  of 
Eussia  for  reporting  useful  discoveries  to 
the  Russian  government.  In  this  case  he 
was  filled  with  alternate  hope  and  de- 


106       SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
spair,  and  finally  concluded  to  return  to 
America  to  push  the  matter  before  Con- 
gress. 

During  his  absence,  Dr.  Charles  T. 
Jackson,  his  fellow-passenger  on  board 
the  Sully,  had  laid  public  claim  to  the 
invention.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Smith, 
Paris,  July  13,  1839,  Morse  indignantly 
refutes  the  claims  of  Jackson,  and  says 
that  he  has  sent  a  letter  to  him,  "  calling 
on  him  to  save  his  character  by  a  total 
disclaimer  of  his  presumptuous  claim 
within  one  week  from  the  receipt  of  the 
letter,  and  giving  him  the  plea  of  a  •  mis- 
take ?  and  misconception  of  my  invention 
by  which  he  may  retreat."  He  scores 
Jackson,  speaks  of  his  consummate  self- 
conceit,  and  says  that  he  knows  that  he 
has  not  the  claim  to  a  point  of  any  kind. 
The  letter  is  that  of  an  indignant  honest 
man.  This  controversy  with  Dr.  Jack- 
son was  most  unfortunate,  and  how  much 
Jackson  had  to  do  with  firmly  planting 
the  idea  in  suitable  ground  will  never  be 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE       107 

known  until  Morse  and  Jackson  stand 
together  where  all  things  will  be  brought 
to  light.  Time  certainly  will  never  re- 
veal any  evidence  which  will  decide  who 
originated  the  fertile  idea.  If  Jackson, 
like  Alexander  Graham  Bell,  the  in- 
ventor of  the  telephone,  had  immediately 
availed  himself  of  the  services  of  a  skil- 
ful mechanic,  there  might  have  been  a 
closer  race  between  him  and  Morse. 
The  latter  had  the  mechanical  skill 
which  Dr.  Jackson  apparently  lacked. 
The  painter  had  all  his  life  used  imple- 
ments and  made  models.  He  could  con- 
ceive and  also  execute.  Jackson's  mind 
was  capable  of  conceiving  the  idea,  and  he 
knew  the  literature  of  the  subject.  Both 
men  were  doubtless  honest  in  their  public 
professions  of  the  ownership  of  the  great 
idea.  The  historian  who  says  the  last 
word  on  this  controversy  must  also  be  a 
psychologist  who  has  studied  the  subject 
of  cerebration,  the  unconscious  assimila- 
tion of  ideas  which  makes  them  forever 


108  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
a  part  of  the  assimilator.  Joseph  Henry 
knew  that  an  electro -magnetic  telegraph 
was  possible ;  but  scientific  researches 
seemed  to  him  more  important  than  in- 
vention of  electrical  devices.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  notice  that  he  did  not  put  in  a 
claim,  as  he  well  might,  for  an  electro- 
magnetic telegraph.  When  Morse  con- 
sulted him  in  regard  to  the  practicability 
of  the  extension  of  the  telegraph  to  great 
distances,  Henry  wrote,  February  24, 
1842  :  — 

"The  idea  of  transmitting  intelli- 
gence to  a  distance  by  means  of  electrical 
action  has  been  suggested  by  various 
persons,  from  the  time  of  Franklin  to  the 
present ;  but  until  within  the  last  few 
years,  or  since  the  principal  discoveries 
in  electro-magnetism,  all  attempts  to  re- 
duce it  to  practice  were  necessarily  un- 
successful. The  mere  suggestion,  how- 
ever, of  a  scheme  of  this  kind  is  a  matter 
for  which  little  credit  can  be  claimed, 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE       109 

since  it  is  one  which  would  naturally 
arise  in  the  mind  of  almost  any  person 
familiar  with  the  phenomena  of  electric- 
ity 5  but  the  bringing  it  forward  at  the 
proper  moment,  when  the  developments 
of  science  are  able  to  furnish  the  means 
of  certain  success,  and  the  devising  a 
plan  for  carrying  it  into  practical  opera- 
tion, are  the  grounds  of  a  just  claim  to 
scientific  reputation,  as  well  as  to  public 
patronage. 

"  About  the  same  time  with  yourself 
Professor  Wheatstone,  of  London,  and  Dr. 
Steinheil,  of  Germany,  proposed  plans  of 
the  electro-magnetic  telegraph;  but  these 
differ  as  much  from  yours  as  the  nature 
of  the  common  principle  would  well  per- 
mit, and,  unless  some  essential  improve- 
ments have  lately  been  made  in  these 
European  plans,  I  should  prefer  the  one 
invented  by  yourself. 

"With  my  best  wishes  for  your  suc- 
cess, I  remain,  with  much  esteem,  yours 
truly,  JOSEPH  HENRY." 


110       SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

This  letter  shows  a  generous  apprecia- 
tion of  Morse's  practical  invention  and 
a  lofty  indifference  to  the  money  value  of 
his  own  contributions  to  the  theory  of 
the  telegraph.  Morse  sent  a  copy  of  this 
letter  to  the  Hon.  W.  W.  Boardman, 
member  of  Congress,  urging  action  of 
Congress,  in  which  he  says,  speaking  of 
Henry :  ' l  He  is  not  of  an  enthusiastic 
temperament,  but  exceedingly  cautious 
in  giving  an  opinion  on  scientific  inven- 
tions ;  yet  in  this  case  he  expressed  him- 
self in  the  warmest  terms,  and  told  my 
friend  Dr.  Chilton  (who  informed  me  of 
it)  that  he  had  just  been  witnessing  the 
operation  of  the  most  beautiful  and  in- 
genious instrument  he  had  ever  seen." 

Morse  found  on  his  return  from  his  un- 
successful European  trip  that  nothing  had 
been  done  by  Congress.  He  was  very 
poor,  and  at  times  thought  of  throwing 
up  the  invention  and  returning  to  his 
profession  of  an  artist.  General  Strother, 
of  Virginia,  u  Porte  Crayon,"  testifies  to 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  111 
the  inventor's  poverty.  He  took  paint- 
ing lessons  of  Morse  ;  and,  on  one  occa- 
sion, Morse  asked  for  a  portion  of  his 
fee,  and  the  two  dined  together.  Morse 
said  :  ' '  This  is  my  first  meal  for  twenty- 
four  hours.  Strother,  don't  be  an  artist. 
It  means  beggary.  Your  life  depends 
upon  people  who  know  nothing  of  your 
art  and  care  nothing  for  you.  A  house 
dog  lives  better,  and  the  very  sensitive- 
ness that  stimulates  an  artist  to  work 
keeps  him  alive  to  suffering." 

The  Patent  Office  issued  Morse's  patent 
in  1840,  the  delay  having  been  caused 
by  Morse's  request  that  the  issue  might 
be  postponed  until  the  foreign  patents 
had  been  secured.  Morse  had  before 
him  the  usual  fate  of  inventors  —  the  ne- 
cessity of  fighting  for  his  patent.  The 
unscrupulous,  too,  are  great  assimilators 
of  other  men's  ideas.  He  had  yet,  how- 
ever, to  show  that  there  was  money  in 
the  invention ;  and  he  had  no  money  to  do 
this.  Apparently,  he  received  very  little 


112  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
help  from  his  partners.  The  resources  of 
the  Hon.  F.  O.  J.  Smith  were  exhausted  by 
the  European  trip.  Mr.  Vail  seemed  re- 
luctant to  give  further  aid,  and  Professor 
Gale  was  a  professor.  The  partners  were 
widely  separated.  Morse  says  in  a  letter, 
1841,  to  Vail :  "All  the  burden  now 
rests  on  my  shoulders,  after  years  of  time 
and  attention  to  the  enterprise ;  and  I 
am  willing,  so  far  as  I  am  able,  to  bear 
my  share  if  the  other  proprietors  will 
lend  a  helping  hand  and  give  me  facili- 
ties to  act,  and  a  reasonable  recompense 
for  my  services  in  case  of  success. "  In 
another  letter  he  says,  "I  have  to  do  all 
the  labour  of  the  whole  enterprise  at 
present,  and  have  not  a  cent  of  money 
in  the  world. "  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Smith 
in  1842  he  repeats  the  same  sentiment : 
"The  depressed  situation  of  all  my  asso- 
ciates in  the  invention  has  thrown  the 
whole  burden  of  again  attempting  a 
movement  entirely  on  me.  .  .  .  You 
must  perceive  at  what  disadvantage  I  do 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  113 
business  when,  before  I  can  make  any 
answer  to  queries  from  persons  who  feel 
disposed  to  take  hold  of  the  enterprise,  I 
must  write  two  or  three  letters  of  particu- 
lars to  different  parts  of  the  country,  and 
wait  days  for  an  answer.  The  necessity 
of  our  telegraph  is  made  evident  in  this 
very  case.  If  you  had  in  your  parlour 
one  of  my  registers,  there  would  be  no 
.need  of  a  long  journey,  or  of  waiting 
three  or  four  days  for  an  answer."  It  is 
difficult  to  realise  to-day  Morse's  in- 
ability to  enlist  capital  in  his  enterprise. 
Electricity  now  is  used  by  all  sorts  of  pro- 
moters ;  and  there  are  numberless  cases 
of  organisation  of  business  men  who 
"chip  in,"  as  the  expression  runs,  or 
"take  flyers"  in  more  or  less  chimerical 
plans.  Morse  can  claim  to  have  been 
the  first  man  to  show  the  money  value  of 
electricity  5  and  he  endured  the  priva- 
tions similar  to  that  of  a  prospector  who 
toils  through  the  wilderness  and  over  the 
mountains  to  a  rich  placer,  where,  hav- 


114       SAMUEL   F.  B.  MOESE 

ing  shown  the  way,  he  must  defend  him- 
self from  thieves  and  the  unscrupulous. 

Even  the  men  whom  he  was  destined 
to  enrich  failed  him  at  the  pinch.  He 
applied  to  the  Yails  for  a  small  sum  to  go 
to  Washington  to  make  one  last  attempt 
to  obtain  the  assistance  of  the  government. 
He  met  with  a  polite  refusal  to  advance 
further  sums.  All  now  depended  on 
Morse,  and  he  exerted  that  " impetus77 
which  was  a  family  characteristic. 
He  wrote  a  very  able  letter  to  the 
Hon.  C.  G.  Ferris  of  New  York,  one  of 
the  House  Committee  on  Commerce,  de- 
tailing at  great  length  the  advantages  of 
his  telegraph,  and  submitting  very  busi- 
ness-like estimates  of  cost  of  construction 
and  of  revenues  that  might  be  reasonably 
expected.  This  letter  shows  that  Morse 
could  use  the  pen  as  well  as  the  pencil, 
and  it  resulted  in  Mr.  Ferris' s  submitting 
a  report  to  Congress  which  at  last  re- 
sulted in  favourable  action.  The  debate 
on  the  resolution  to  give  aid  to  Morse 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  115 
has  not  been  preserved  5  but,  if  we  can 
judge  from  a  brief  abstract  of  the  discus- 
sion in  the  Congressional  Globe  jpf  Feb- 
ruary 21,  1843,  certain  memberjs  wrote 
themselves  out,  to  use  Shakespearian  lan- 
guage, i  i  as  asses. ' ' 

The  Hon.  Cave  Johnson  came  out  of 
his  adumbration  with  an  amendment 
proposing  that  one-half  of  the  appropri- 
ation be  given  to  a  Mr.  Fisk  to  enable 
him  to  carry  on  mesmeric  experiments. 
The  same  sapient  gentleman  became 
Postmaster-general  under  Polk,  and  ex- 
pressed an  official  opinion  "that  the 
operation  of  the  telegraph  between 
Washington  and  Baltimore  had  not  satis- 
fied him  that,  under  any  rate  of  postage 
that  could  be  adopted,  its  revenues  could 
be  made  equal  to  its  expenditures. " 
The  Hon.  Sam  Houston  thought  that 
Millerism  should  receive  an  appropria- 
tion. The  amendment  was  rejected ; 
and  on  February  23,  1843,  the  bill  pro- 
viding for  the  appropriation  was  passed 


116  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 
by  a  majority  of  six.  An  analysis  of  the 
votes  of  the  members  shows  that  the 
states  which  voted  for  the  appropriation 
were  those  in  which  the  average  of  edu- 
cation was  highest.  Only  two  slave- 
holding  states  voted  for  it.  Morse  sat  in 
the  gallery  of  the  Senate  at  the  Capitol 
during  the  entire  day  and  evening  of  the 
session,  and,  being  assured  that  there  was 
no  possibility  of  a  vote  being  reached, 
retired,  worn  out  and  dispirited.  In 
the  morning  a  young  lady  told  him  that 
her  father  was  present  at  the  close  of  the 
session,  and  that  the  bill  had  been  passed. 
Morse,  overjoyed,  said  that  she  should 
send  the  first  message  over  the  first  line 
of  telegraph  that  should  be  opened. 
Morse  immediately  set  to  work  on  the 
experimental  line.  His  assistants  were 
Professor  L.  D.  Gale,  Professor  J.  C. 
Fisher,  and  Mr.  Yail.  At  the  same  time 
Mr.  Ezra  Cornell,  the  subsequent  founder 
of  Cornell  University,  became  associated 
with  the  enterprise.  He  had  invented 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  117 
a  machine  for  laying  an  underground 
pipe  which  contained  insulated  wires ; 
for  it  was  then  considered  essential  that 
the  wires  should  be  placed  in  the  earth, 
and  not  overhead.  Almost  immediately 
it  was  found  that  there  were  practical  as 
well  as  electrical  difficulties  in  thus  en- 
closing the  wires,  and  it  was  decided  to 
adopt  the  overhead  method.  ~No  sooner 
was  this  done  than  the  principal  difficul- 
ties seemed  to  vanish.  Mr.  Yail  had  a 
plan  of  fixing  the  wires  to  the  poles 
which  Morse  was  about  to  adopt  in  pref- 
erence to  one  proposed  by  Cornell.  On 
consultation  with  Professor  Henry  he 
concluded  to  adopt  the  plan  of  Cornell. 
Many  months  during  1843  and  the  early 
part  of  1844  were  spent  in  experimental 
trials  on  the  necessary  battery  strength 
to  operate  the  line  between  Baltimore 
and  Washington. 

On  May  24,  1844,  everything  was  in 
readiness  for  the  final  trial.  Morse's 
friends  were  assembled  in  the  Supreme 


118  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOBSE 
Court  room  at  Washington,  which  was 
one  of  the  termini  of  the  line.  Miss  Ells- 
worth, the  young  lady  who  had  an- 
nounced the  welcome  news  to  Morse  of 
the  passing  of  his  appropriation  by  Con- 
gress, and  who  had  been  promised  the 
sending  of  the  first  telegraphic  message, 
was  present.  Her  mother  suggested  a 
line  from  Numbers  xxiii.  23 — "What 
hath  God  wrought.'7  Morse  sent  the 
message.  It  was  instantaneously  received 
by  Yail,  who  did  not  know  of  its  choice, 
and  was  telegraphed  back  to  Washing- 
ton. A  conversation  over  the  line  then 
followed.  Morse  said,  "  Stop  a  few  min- 
utes. > J  Yail  replied,  ' '  Yes. '  >  Then  the 
conversation  went  on:  "Have  you  any 
news  ?  "  "  No. '  >  "  Mr.  Seaton'  s  respects 
to  you."  "My  respects  to  him.7' 
' '  What  is  your  time  f ' J  "  Nine  o'  clock, 
twenty  -  eight  minutes. ' '  "  What  weather 
have  you?"  "Cloudy."  "Separate 
your  words  more."  "Oil  your  clock- 
work." "Buchanan  stock  said  to  be 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  119 
rising.77  "I  have  a  great  crowd  at 
my  window.77  "Van  Buren  cannon 
in  front,  with  a  fox  tail  on  it.77 
The  carping  politicians  and  statesmen, 
however,  soon  received  further  evidence 
of  the  success  of  the  experiments  with 
the  telegraph.  The  National  Democratic 
Convention  for  the  nomination  of  presi- 
dential candidates  assembled  in  Balti- 
more, May  29.  There  was  a  long  and 
exciting  struggle  over  the  nominees. 
Van  Buren  was  finally  dropped,  and 
James  K.  Polk  received  the  nomination. 
A  struggle  then  arose  over  the  candidates 
for  Vice-President.  Silas  Wright,  of  New 
York,  was  nominated.  Mr.  Wright  was 
then  in  Washington ;  and  Vail  tele- 
graphed the  news  of  the  nomination  to 
Morse,  who  communicated  it  to  Wright. 
The  convention  was  astonished  at  re- 
ceiving a  telegraphic  message  from  Mr. 
Wright  declining  the  nomination,  and 
refused  to  believe  it.  The  convention 
adjourned  until  a  committee  could  go  to 


120       SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
"Washington  and  get  reliable  information 
on  the  subject. 

The  experimental  line  was  a  success, 
and  the  question  now  arose  in  regard  to 
selling  the  telegraph  to  the  government. 
The  sum  named  was  only  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  The  Hon.  Cave  John- 
son, as  we  have  already  said,  reported 
against  it.  At  the  present  time  the  capi- 
talisation of  the  Western  Union  Tele- 
graph Company  is  one  hundred  million 
dollars.  On  May  15,  1845,  a  private 
company  was  formed,  which  included  the 
names  of  Hon.  Amos  Kendall,  formerly 
Postmaster-general  under  Jackson,  Ezra 
Cornell,  Hon.  F.  O.  J.  Smith,  Alfred 
Yail,  and  twenty-two  other  stockholders. 

Morse  again  started  for  Europe,  Au- 
gust 6,  1845,  to  enlist  foreign  capital. 
He  was  again  unsuccessful  in  England, 
and  also  on  the  Continent ;  and  he  re- 
turned to  America  with  a  stronger  feeling 
of  patriotism  than  ever.  There  his  affairs 
at  last  were  in  able  business  hands,  and 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  121 
lines  were  being  rapidly  constructed. 
Then,  the  way  having  been  pointed  out, 
the  modern  highwayman  and  the  nine- 
teenth-century type  of  the  robbers  of 
the  Ehine  began  their  attacks  on  the 
validity  of  Morse's  patents.  The  first 
lawsuit  is  especially  interesting,  since  it 
shows  the  evidence  of  a  socialistic  move- 
ment which  strives  to  fatten  on  other 
people's  brains,  and  which  is  not  absent 
as  we  enter  upon  a  new  century.  A 
contract  had  been  made  June  13,  1845, 
with  Henry  O'Eielly,  who  had  been 
prominent  in  the  construction  of  the 
lines  between  Philadelphia  and  Wash- 
ington, to  construct  a  line  from  Philadel- 
phia to  St.  Louis,  and  to  certain  other 
points  which  were  carefully  specified. 
The  line  to  St.  Louis  was  finished  in 
December,  1847.  O'Eielly  then,  with- 
out authority,  began  a  line  to  New  Or- 
leans, which  was  entitled  the  People's 
Line,  and  on  which  he  claimed  to  use 
instruments  which  differed  essentially 


122       SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

from  the  Morse  instruments.  The  Morse 
company  immediately  applied  for  an 
injunction.  The  would-be  robbers  rep- 
resented to  the  great  American  public 
that  the  Morse  company  was  a  dangerous 
monopoly;  perhaps  the  word  " trust" 
was  used  by  the  newspapers  and  the 
politicians  of  that  day.  The  title  "The 
People's  Line"  was  captivating,  and 
many  of  the  good  people  found  reasons 
for  believing  that  Morse  was  not  the 
real  inventor  of  the  telegraph.  It  was 
maintained  that  Wheatstone  in  England 
and  Steinheil  of  Bavaria  had  preceded 
Morse.  It  was  urged  that  Joseph  Henry 
had  invented  the  relay.  The  O'Bielly 
case  was  tried  in  Louisville,  Kentucky, 
August  24,  1848,  and  was  decided  in 
favour  of  Morse.  An  appeal  was  taken 
to  the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington. 
Salmon  P.  Chase,  afterwards  Chief  Jus- 
tice of  the  United  States,  was  one  of  the 
lawyers  retained  by  O'  Eielly.  The  Su- 
preme Bench  gave  a  decision  in  favour 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOBSE  123 
of  Morse,  and  Chief  Justice  Taney  de- 
livered a  very  full  opinion. 

There  are  many  scientific  men  even 
to-day  who  think  that  Joseph  Henry 
was  the  real  inventor  of  the  telegraph, 
since  his  researches  clearly  embody  the 
principles  which  underlie  its  action.  It 
is  sometimes  difficult  for  a  professor  to 
understand  the  principles  which  guide 
the  legal  profession  in  their  conduct  of 
patent  cases.  A  method  of  procedure 
has  grown  up  which  is  probably  justified 
by  experience  and  public  exigency. 
The  question  of  dates  and  records  is  ex- 
tremely important,  since  men  are  prone 
"to  think  more  highly  of  themselves 
than  they  ought  to  do, ' '  and  their  words 
and  opinions  undergo  strange  changes  in 
the  presence  of  a  glittering  prize.  A 
clear  light  upon  the  standpoint  of  the 
legal  profession  in  such  matters  is  shown 
by  the  following  extract  from  an  opinion 
of  Judge  Kane,  delivered  in  Philadel- 
phia September,  1851,  in  the  case  of 


124       SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
Morse's    company,    the  Magnetic  Tele- 
graph,    Company    versus    the      "Bain 
Line"  :  — 

"  It  is  only  to  make  the  first  approach 
to  a  controversy  on  this  point,  to  prove 
to  us  that  Professor  Henry  had,  as  early 
as  1828,  made  the  intensity  magnet,  with 
which  the  scientific  world  is  now  familiar, 
or  that  he  afterwards,  and  before  Mr. 
Morse's  first  application  for  a  patent,  had 
illustrated  before  his  classes  at  Prince- 
ton the  manner  in  which  one  circuit 
could  operate  to  hold  another  closed  or 
to  break  it  at  pleasure,  or  that  he  had 
foreseen  the  applicability  of  his  discov- 
eries to  the  purposes  of  a  telegraph.  The 
question  is  not  one  of  scientific  prece- 
dence ;  and,  if  it  were,  this  is  not  the 
forum  that  could  add  to  or  detract  from 
the  eminent  fame  of  Mr.  Henry.  It  is 
purely  a  question  of  invention  applied 
in  a  practical  form  to  a  specific  use  ;  and 
so  regarded,  it  admits  but  a  single 
answer."  In  other  words,  Morse  had 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  125 
invented  a  new  and  useful  art.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  that  no  scientific  ex- 
perts were  employed  by  the  litigants. 
The  subject  was  young,  and  all  the  liter- 
ature on  the  subject  of  electricity  could 
be  understood  by  even  those  not  trained 
in  science.  There  was,  therefore,  less 
tergiversation  in  the  records  of  this  liti- 
gation than  in  the  case  of  subsequent 
electrical  cases.  The  library  of  the  New 
York  Historical  Society  contains  more 
than  one  hundred  volumes  devoted  to 
the  history  of  telegraphic  litigation  in 
the  United  States. 

Morse  was  at  last  successful.  The 
great  invention  had  been  made,  and  a 
fortune  was  his.  He  took  for  a  second 
wife  Miss  Sarah  E.  Griswold  of  Pough- 
keepsie,  New  York,  the  daughter  of  his 
cousin.  She  was  twenty-five  years  of 
age,  and  he  was  now  fifty-six.  He  pur- 
chased two  hundred  acres  of  land  near 
Poughkeepsie,  and  entered  upon  the 
final  period  of  prosperity  and  distinc- 


126  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
tion.  The  Sturm  und  Drang  of  life  was 
over.  His  serenity  was  only  disturbed 
by  occasional  incursions  into  his  tele- 
graphic fields  of  the  robber  barons  whom 
we  have  mentioned.  It  is  probable  that 
the  repelling  of  these  attacks  and  the 
increasing  business  due  to  his  telegraphic 
interests  prevented  his  resuming  the 
brush.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  he 
had  found  his  true  vocation,  that  of  an 
inventor.  His  great  impetus  was  in  this 
direction  rather  than  in  art.  Honours 
now  became  his.  He  received  the  de- 
gree of  LL.D.  from  Yale  College.  Vari- 
ous gold  medals  were  bestowed  upon 
him  by  foreign  governments.  The  King 
of  Denmark  bestowed  upon  him  the 
cross  of  the  order  of  Dannebrog.  He 
was  elected  a  member  of  the  Eoyal 
Academy  of  Sciences  of  Sweden.  Isa- 
bella II.,  Queen  of  Spain,  conferred  the 
order  of  knighthood  and  Commander  of 
the  first  class  of  the  Eoyal  Order  of  Isa- 
bella the  Catholic.  Victor  Emmanuel 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  127 
II.,  King  of  Italy,  gave  him  the  brevet 
and  insignia  of  Chevalier  of  the  Royal 
Order  of  SS.  Maurizio  et  Lazare.  The 
Societe  de  Physique  et  d'Histoire  Natu- 
relle  of  Geneva,  Switzerland,  elected  him 
an  honorary  member. 

In  1857  Morse  had  issued  a  memorial 
to  several  of  the  diplomatic  representa- 
tives of  the  United  States  government  in 
Europe,  setting  forth  his  claims  to  the 
great  invention  and  his  claims  for  indem- 
nity for  the  use  of  his  telegraph.  The 
American  minister  in  Paris,  the  Hon. 
John  Y.  Mason,  was  influential  in  bring- 
ing this  memorial  to  the  attention  of  the 
French  government  and  to  other  repre- 
sentatives of  the  powers  ;  and  a  conven- 
tion formed  of  members  from  France, 
Austria,  Belgium,  Netherlands,  Pied- 
mont, Russia,  the  Holy  See,  Sweden, 
Tuscany,  and  Turkey,  recommended  a 
testimonial  of  four  hundred  thousand 
francs,  which  was  remitted  in  four  annu- 
ities. It  is  noticeable  that  Great  Britain 


128  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
did  not  join  in  this  testimonial.  His 
native  country  honoured  him  with  ban- 
quets ;  and,  when  he  was  eighty  years  of 
age,  a  bronze  statue  of  him  was  placed, 
with  imposing  ceremonies,  in  Central 
Park,  New  York.  He  died  at  Pough- 
keepsie,  New  York,  April  2,  1872. 

Morse  was  fortunate  in  entering  the 
field  of  electrical  invention  when  re- 
searches had  been  made  which  rendered 
the  success  of  a  telegraph  possible.  He 
had  few  competitors.  Where  to-day 
there  are  a  thousand  electricians,  then 
there  was  only  one.  The  invention  of 
the  telegraph  was  sure  to  come,  and  he 
was  the  chosen  torch-bearer.  He  was 
fortunate  in  having  received  a  liberal 
education,  which,  together  with  his 
natural  urbanity,  gave  him  influential 
friends. 

During  his  severe  struggle,  Morse  ex- 
hibited the  strong  moral  qualities  of 
courage  and  persistence.  When  great 
success  came  to  him,  he  forgot  his  in- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE  129 
debtedness  to  Joseph  Henry.  Morse  in 
1855  published  a  pamphlet  in  which  he 
announced :  — 

" First:  I  certainly  shall  show  that 
I  have  not  only  manifested  every  dis- 
position to  give  due  credit  to  Professor 
Henry,  but,  under  the  hasty  impression 
that  he  deserved  credit  for  discoveries 
in  science  bearing  upon  the  telegraph, 
I  did  actually  give  him  a  degree  of 
credit  not  only  beyond  what  he  had 
received  at  that  time  from  the  scientific 
world,  but  a  degree  of  credit  to  which 
subsequent  research  has  proved  him  not 
to  be  entitled.  Second  :  I  shall  show 
that  I  am  not  indebted  to  him  for  any 
discoveries  in  science  bearing  on  the 
telegraph,  and  that  all  discoveries  of 
principles  having  this  bearing  were 
made  not  by  Professor  Henry,  but  by 
others,  and  prior  to  any  experiments  of 
Professor  Henry  in  the  science  of  electro- 
magnetism.  Third :  I  shall  further 
show  that  the  claim  set  up  for  Professor 


130       SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 
Henry  to  the  invention  of  an  important 
part  of  my  telegraph   system    has    no 
validity  in  fact.'7 

Joseph  Henry,  in  a  dignified  com- 
munication to  the  Eegents  of  the  Smith- 
sonian, says  in  reference  to  his  state- 
ments in  court:  "It  was  my  wish,  in 
every  statement,  to  render  Mr.  Morse 
full  and  scrupulous  justice.  While  I 
was  constrained,  therefore,  to  state  that 
he  had  made  no  discoveries  in  science,  I 
distinctly  declared  that  he  was  entitled 
to  the  merit  of  combining  and  applying 
the  discoveries  of  others  in  the  invention 
of  the  best  practical  form  of  the  mag- 
netic telegraph.  My  testimony  tended 
to  establish  the  fact  that,  though  not  en- 
titled to  the  exclusive  use  of  the  electro- 
magnet for  telegraphic  purposes,  he  was 
entitled  to  his  particular  machine,  reg- 
ister, alphabet,  etc." 

A  select  committee  of  the  Board  of 
Eegents  took  up  this  assault  of  Morse 
upon  their  distinguished  secretary. 


SAMUEL  P.  B.  MOESE  131 
The  chairman  of  this  committee  was 
President  Felton  of  Harvard  University, 
and  it  characteiised  the  attack  of  Morse 
as  a  "  disingenuous  piece  of  sophistical 
argument, "  and  stated  their  conviction 
that  Morse  had  failed  to  substantiate 
any  one  of  the  charges  he  had  made 
against  Professor  Henry. 

Nevertheless,  to  Morse  must  be  given 
the  credit  of  the  adaptation  of  Henry7  s 
investigations  to  the  needs  of  mankind. 
He  was  a  pioneer  in  the  subject  of  the 
practical  applications  of  electricity ; 
and,  since  his  time,  other  men  have  at- 
tained great  popular  reputation  as  in- 
ventors in  electricity,  who  like  him  had 
not  distinguished  themselves  by  scientific 
investigations,  and,  indeed,  had  in  gen- 
eral very  little  knowledge  of  science. 
The  world,  however,  recognises  its  debt 
to  them  for  their  perception  of  the  prac- 
tical value  of  scientific  work  and  their 
courage,  persistence,  and  energy  in 
achieving  practical  results. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The  general  reader  will  find  many 
short  essays  in  various  periodicals  and 
cyclopaedias  which  give  the  main  in- 
cidents in  the  life  of  Morse.  There  is 
also  one  extended  biography  —  that  of 
Prime.  The  short  bibliography  given 
below  includes  the  articles  written  by 
Morse,  which  throw  light  upon  his 
artistic  career  and  the  subsequent  de- 
velopment of  his  powers  as  an  inventor. 
In  the  prolonged  litigation  which  fol- 
lowed his  great  invention  there  were 
many  points  raised  in  regard  to  his 
merits  as  an  original  discoverer  ;  and  the 
principal  authorities  which  discuss  these 
points  have  been  included  in  this  short 
list. 

I.  THE  AMERICAN  ELECTRO-MAGNETIC 
TELEGRAPH  :  With  the  Eeports  of  Con- 
gress and  a  Description  of  all  Telegraphs 
known  employing  Electricity  or  Galvan- 
ism. By  Alfred  Yail.  (Philadelphia, 
1845  :  Lee  &  Blanchard.) 


BIBLIOGEAPHY  133 

The  treatise  was  written  by  the  part- 
ner of  Morse  in  the  latter7  s  early  strug- 
gles to  bring  his  invention  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  public,  and  contains  a  good 
description  of  Morse's  apparatus. 

II.  MORSE'S  PATENT  :  FULL  EXPOSURE 
OF  CHAS.  T.  JACKSON'S  PRETENSIONS  TO 
THE    INVENTION    OF    THE    AMERICAN 
ELECTRO-MAGNETIC  TELEGRAPH.      By 
Amos  Kendall.     (New  York,  1849.) 

This  is  an  exposition  of  the  view 
taken  by  the  partisans  of  Morse  in  re- 
gard to  the  claim  of  Dr.  Jackson,  and 
those  who  are  curious  in  regard  to  the  • 
origin  of  the  idea  of  the  telegraph  in 
Morse's  mind  will  find  a  full  criticism 
of  Dr.  Jackson's  claims. 

III.  HISTORIC    ANNALS    OF   THE   NA- 
TION AX    ACADEMY    OF    DESIGN.      By 
Thomas   S.    Cummings,    N.A.     (Phila- 
delphia, 1865 :  George  W.  Childs.)    This 
interesting  treatise  by  a  professor  of  the 
arts  of  design  in  the  New  York  Univer- 


134  BIBLIOGBAPHY 

sity  contains  a  full  account  of  Morse's 
connection  with  the  National  Academy 
of  Design,  and  is  therefore  illustrative 
of  his  artist's  career. 

IY.  MEMORIAL  OF  S.  P.  B.  MORSE. 
Order  of  City  Council.  (Boston,  1872.) 
A  collection  of  addresses  in  honour  of 
Morse. 

V.  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  FINLAY  BREESE 
MORSE.     By    Samuel    Irenseus    Prime. 
(New  York,  1875  :  D.  Appleton  &  Co.) 
The  most  complete  biography  of  Morse 
which  has  been  printed. 

VI.  A  MEMORIAL  OF  JOSEPH  HENRY. 
Published  by  order  of  Congress.     (Wash- 
ington,     1880 :     Government    Printing 
Office.)     This    includes  Henry's  letters 
to  Morse,    and  the  history  of  Morse's 
attack  upon  Henry,  in  which  Morse  dis- 
claims having   received  any  assistance 
from    the    original     investigations    of 
Henry  in  electricity  and  magnetism. 


THE  BEACON  BIOGRAPHIES. 

M.  A.  DE WOLFE  HOWE,  Editor. 


The  aim  of  this  series  is  to  furnish  brief,  read- 
able, and  authentic  accounts  of  the  lives  of  those 
Americans  whose  personalities  have  impressed 
themselves  most  deeply  on  the  character  and 
history  of  their  country.  On  account  of  the 
length  of  the  more  formal  lives,  often  running 
into  large  volumes,  the  average  busy  man  and 
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tion to  acquaint  themselves  with  American  bi- 
ography. In  the  present  series  everything  that 
such  a  reader  would  ordinarily  care  to  know  is 
given  by  writers  of  special  competence,  who 
possess  in  full  measure  the  best  contemporary 
point  of  view.  Each  volume  is  equipped  with 
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dates,  and  a  brief  bibliography  for  further  read- 
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in  the  pocket. 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY,  Publishers. 
PIERCE  BUILDING,  Copley  Square,  BOSTON. 

[OVER] 


THE   BEACON    BIOGRAPHIES 


The  following  volumes  are  issued:  — 
Louis  Agassiz,  by  ALICE  BACHE  GOULD. 
Edwin  Booth,  by  CHARLES  TOWNSEND  COPELAND. 
Phillips  Brooks,  by  M.  A.  DE\VOLFE  HOWE. 
John  Brown,  by  JOSEPH  EDGAR  CHAMBERLIN. 
Aaron  Burr,  by  HENRY  CHILDS  MERWIN. 
James  Fenimore  Cooper,  by  W.  B.  SHUBRICK  CLYMER. 
Stephen  Decatur,  by  CYRUS  TOWNSEND  BRADY. 
Frederick  Douglass,  by  CHARLES  W.  CHESNUTT. 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  by  FRANK  B.  SANBORN 
David  G.  Farragut,  by  JAMES  BARNES. 
Ulysses  S.  Grant,  by  OWEN  WISTER. 
Alexander  Hamilton,  by  JAMES  SCHOULER. 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  by  Mrs.  JAMES  T.  FIELDS. 
Father  Hecker,  by  HENRY  D.  SEDGWICK,  Jr. 
Sam  Houston,  by  SARAH   BARNWELL  ELLIOTT. 
"  Stonewall"  Jackson,  by  CARL  HOVEY. 
Thomas  Jefferson,  by  THOMAS  E.  WATSON. 
Robert  E.   Lee,  by  WILLIAM  P.  TRENT. 
Henry  W.  Longfellow,  by  GEORGE  RICE  CARPENTER. 
James  Russell  Lowell,  by  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE,  Jr. 
Samuel  F.  B.  Morse,  by  JOHN  TROWBRIDGE. 
Thomas  Paine,  by  ELLERY  SEDGWICK. 
Daniel  Webster,  by  NORMAN  HAPGOOD. 
John  Greenleaf  Whittier,  by  RICHARD  BURTON. 

The  following  are  among  those  in  preparation:  — 
John  Jacob  Astor,  by  ARTHUR  ASTOR  CAREY. 
John  James  Audubon,  by  JOHN  BURROUGHS. 
Benjamin  Franklin,  by  LINDSAY  SWIFT. 


THE  WESTMINSTER   BIOG- 
RAPHIES. 


The  WESTMINSTER  BIOGRAPHIES  are  uniform  in  plan 
size,  and  general  make-up  with  the  BEACON  BIOGRAPHIES, 
the  point  of  important  difference  lying  in  the  fact  that 
they  deal  with  the  lives  of  eminent  Englishmen  instead 
of  eminent  Americans.  They  are  bound  in  limp  red  cloth, 
are  gilt-topped,  and  have  a  cover  design  and  a  vignette  title- 
page  by  BERTRAM  GROSVENOR  GOODHUE.  Like  the  Beacon 
Biographies,  each  volume  has  a  frontispiece  portrait,  a 
photogravure,  a  calendar  of  dates,  and  a  bibliography  for 
further  reading. 

The  following  volumes  are  issued:  — 

Robert  Browning,  by  ARTHUR  WAUGH. 

Daniel  Defoe,  by  WILFRED  WHITTEN. 

Adam  Duncan  (Lord  Camperdown),  by  H.  W.  WILSON. 

George  Eliot,  by  CLARA  THOMSON. 

Cardinal  Newman,  by  A.  R.  WALLER. 

John  Wesley,  by  FRANK  BANFIELD. 

Many  others  are  in  preparation. 


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